


Peter and the Wolves

by Write_like_an_American



Series: In The Beginning [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action/Adventure, Amnesia, Gore, It's the Ravagers what do you expect, Itsy bitsy baby Peter, Kid Fic, M/M, Space Pirates, Synesthesia, Underage Drinking, Violence, Work In Progress, Worldbuilding, Yondu's A+ Parenting, everyone is a terrible influence, long fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 43,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5030752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Write_like_an_American
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The universe is a big, big place. Even bigger when you're a young Terran who suddenly has to find your own way in it.</p><p>When things go wrong (as things are wont to do) Peter, Kraglin and Yondu are sent running to opposite ends of the galaxy.  Hunted by enemies and encountering characters old and new, it's going to be one long and ugly scramble if they want to come out alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Yondu's an a-hole, Kraglin's had enough, and Peter is being ignored.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **You may notice that ‘Major Character Death’ isn’t included in the tags. So please do keep reading after the first paragraph. ;)**
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> **For everyone who follows my Ravager series: this is set after BIOTS but diverges from the first chapter of TRGTGL/The One With The Hostile Takeover/What Doesn’t Kill You. You don’t need to read BIOTS first, as it just gets us to the point where Yondu’s captain and Kraglin first mate. But you might miss out on a couple of name-drops.**
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> **For everyone who hasn’t read ‘Jealousy’ – Chroma’s a prostitute. She’s awesome.**

It started with a bang. 

More a _boom_ , to be precise. And what a boom – it was an epiglottal consonant from a cosmic tongue: a sub-bass throb that was felt as much as it was heard. At least, that was how it seemed to Peter, who watched in nauseous slow motion as the plasma bolt erupted from Yondu’s skull. 

*** 

_Rewind._

*** 

“And if I see your sorry ass on Bridge before I say so, I’mma let Horuz _eat you!_ ” The slam of the door in Quill’s face was all kinds of satisfying. The pain when Yondu proceeded to kick it as hard as he could was less so – “Ow! Fuck, fuck, fuck –“ 

“Y’know sir?” said Kraglin, lounging on the bed with a holopad fanned out in front of his nose. “The guide says when you’re disciplining kids you’re supposed to keep your cool.” 

“The guide, _the guide_ …” Yondu stopped hopping around long enough to pin his first mate with an ugly glower. “Where’d you even get that thing?” 

“Stole it.” Of course. Yondu waved him off. 

“Anyhow, that thing-a-me’s written about Xandarian brats. Says so right on the cover. Doesn’t apply to… To… Whatever Quill is.” 

“Well maybe if you’d asked his daddy what he was when you was taking this job in the first place – or, I dunno, _dropped the kid off like you said you would_ – we wouldn’t be in this mess?” 

Yondu was tired. And his toe hurt. Those were the only reasons why his first mate didn’t have arrow fletching instead of a nose. He still smacked the back of his head as he marched to the chair, foot twinging every step – that was the damn kid’s fault too, of course – and straddled it, slumping moodily over the backrest. “Fuck off. What’s got you so snippy, anyway?” 

Kraglin lowered the pad, a drawbridge of plastic, glass, and shifting pixels. He actually managed to meet Yondu’s glare for a full five seconds, which was a damn good count for him. “You really need me to say it?” 

“Nah, I _want_ you to say it.” Because Yondu knew what this was about. It was written as plain as the jagged constellations that marked out their course. Kraglin was squirming tight around some critter that had crawled up his tailpipe and croaked circa eleven o’clock three nights ago, and said critter was approximately six-seven, muscled like a high-grav dweller, very eager to please, and went by the name of _Axley_. 

Yondu yawned and scratched his nose. “You don’t give two shits when I fuck Chroma.” 

“Chroma’s got something I ain’t!” 

“A sense of humour?” 

“Fuck off.” It only took the duration of a blink for Kraglin to remember himself. Then he scowled – murderously but not mutinously, never that. “Fuck off, _sir_.” 

“Thas better.” Yondu paused. “Although, seeing as it’s my room –“ 

“Yeah, yeah.” Kraglin rose from his side of the bed with a sneer that could curdle any liquid under fifty percent proof – Yondu’s blood, being eighty on a good night, suffered no worse for wear. He slammed his heels into his boots hard enough to make the interlocking grid of palm-coded drawer boxes set into the walls rattle, yanking his jacket over shoulders held high and stiff. He didn’t spare Yondu another glance. 

“Planetside first thing,” Yondu reminded him, spinning the chair from foot to foot. He didn’t look at Kraglin either, as his first mate sauntered off, hands shoved into his pockets far enough to tickle his knees and dragging with him those familiar smells of hair grease and solvent knife-polish. The door bolted behind him with a definitive click. 

Yondu span an aimless moment longer. He stood, twisting the kink from his spine, and kicked off his boots to assess the damage to his toe (minimal – boy didn’t need to die after all); before announcing a heartfelt “Whatever!” to any interstellar entities that might be judging, and collapsing on his empty bed. 

*** 

“Hey.” 

A tug on his collar. Kraglin twisted to follow it, drink slopping, and discovered, in order: a small pink hand almost obscured by the pushed-up red leather sleeve, a set of drooping shoulders, and a pudgy freckled face, expression caught between anger and misery as if its owner had been vacillating too fast and jammed it there. “You ignoring me too?” asked Peter. The haughty tone was belied by the sniff. 

Usually, Kraglin’d let his response – or lack thereof – serve as answer. But what the hell. He wasn’t following Yondu’s lead. Not that night. 

Galleon was orbiting Knowhere. Frigates thrumming in the aether behind, the silent rumble of their engines a warning to any who dared make landfall that night. Crew had wheedled themselves a rare twenty-four hours of port leave between jobs. Lenient, as Yondu went – but things’d been _tense_ ever since he declared they were reneging on the biggest prize of the decade, and refused to be swayed by any of Kraglin’s increasingly desperate suggestions, warnings, and pleas to the contrary. Heck, their comms officer’d reported mutterings of mutiny over the midnight feeds. And while there were always whispers and there always would be, _mutterings_ were of a different nature entirely. 

(Being the one who’d first upset tradition by deposing-slash-disposing of his predecessor, Yondu couldn’t exactly call ‘em hypocrites; but that didn’t mean it didn’t rankle. C’mon. He was no _Dagada._ ) 

Comms crew themselves, being the busy little bees they were, had spurned the proposition of a holiday and gotten right on with relay-repairs, making the most of Knowhere’s overflowing black market tech stalls. Kraglin’d heard rumours that The Crab’s crew had set up shop down in the rotten roots of the Celestial’s canines. And while there was, perhaps, a scant smidgeon of animosity between their captains (more of a _misunderstanding_ , really) so long as the two weren’t left in an enclosed space with no witnesses, everyone should survive. The Ravagers might even get a new comms rig out of it – albeit one charged at a steeper price than they’d find outside of Novaspace. 

But hey. You wanted the best, you got the best. Like the comms crew – they’d been Ravagers since before Dagada’s time, and were sure enough of themselves to refuse Kraglin’s not-especially-heartfelt offer of negotiation assistance. Thus, rather than twenty-four hours spent playing civil with the guy who wanted his captain’s head on a platter (and entertaining notions of serving it up for him) Kraglin had twenty-four hours of relative freedom in which to get himself drunk. Preferably, drunk enough to forget that Yondu’d gotten bored during the graveyard shift and decided that some snivelling underdecker with an authority fetish was worthy of his cock. 

Or his ass. He hadn’t asked – wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. Yondu’d only laugh and say whichever would nark Kraglin off the most. 

Jackass. 

“You’re ignoring me,” Peter decided, dropping his lapel and stepping back. “It’s okay. I don’t like you guys much anyway.” 

Kraglin huffed. “He ain’t _ignoring_ you. He’s trying to pretend you don’t exist so he doesn’t knock you into a vat of spinal fluid next time you piss him off.” 

Peter, without waiting for permission, hopped onto the stool besides him and slumped dramatically over the bar. “I didn’t do anything though!” Kraglin’s stare, even blood-bloated with alcohol, still managed to be as arid as the Morag wastes. Peter relented. “Much. But heck. It was just a bunch of them little baubles – and they only got _half_ melted… Why’s he like them so much, anyway?” 

That was a question not even Kraglin could answer. Maybe _Axley_ would have better luck. “Who knows,” he grunted, slurping a noisy mouthful. “Captain’s a weird one, alright.” 

“Hm.” Peter didn’t disagree. Just… watched him, his big dumb Terran eyes oddly nervous as they followed Kraglin’s moody sips, glass-green liquor fumes curling up towards the first mate’s nostrils on the inhale. Kraglin, mildly self-conscious at the best of times, tugged his collar higher over his chin and glared. 

“What.” 

“He mad at you, too?” 

“ _What?_ No!” Kraglin snarled without meaning to; his teeth clicked on the glass’s rim when he tossed the tumbler back. His voice cracked harsh as he wiped his mouth and stood to leave. “I’m mad at him.” 

The spirits burnt all the way down, and Peter knew better than to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Tell me what you think in the comments! Even if it's just a word~ :3**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Peter makes a friend.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hrrm hrrm apparently when I say 'updates will be sporadic' I mean 'the next day'**

Peter watched the residue bead around the lip of Kraglin’s glass, and wondered if there were laws against this sort of thing. Although – what was it Yondu said? _Only rules Ravagers live by is the ones we make ourselves._ So Peter stood, caught the barman’s eye, fished a credit chit out of his pocket, and said, in his deepest voice: “One of what he had, good sir.” 

The barman was a guy of a size with Thrabba, minus the mechanical eye and plus a sturdy white cone propped on his collarbones. The neck beneath looked too thin to support the head, which was presented at the circle’s centre like a nipple on a breast. It jiggled about with the force of his scoff. “Not likely, kid. You think I want Ravagers on my ass for givin’ their pet alcohol poisoning?” 

Peter decided to waive the ‘pet’ comment. He’d been called worse, all things considered. “I can handle it!” 

The barman raised an eyebrow and resumed cleaning his glass. “Yeah, yeah. Come back in ten years.” 

Alright. The man didn’t want his custom? His loss. Peter pocketed the chip, mouth not quite mastering the fine difference between a scowl and a pout, and flipped the bartender off before marching away. At least, that’s what he intended to do. The weight of a hand on his shoulder prevented him, as another gently folded the up-pronged middle finger down. It was pale, delicate, feminine. Each nail had been filed to a talon, and painted an incongruous pastel pink. 

“Two for me, bud,” said Vaas. She squeezed Peter’s hand until the claws dug in. “If the boss gives you trouble, he’ll have to go through me.” 

Peter turned to discover the rest of the comms crew, standing in a loose arc. There were seven of them, all shapes and sizes from across the galaxy. They ranged from Neets, a short and corpulent pug-faced creature from the Outworlds, to Drabor, a lumpy-necked Kronan who would dwarf Peter if he stood on Kraglin’s shoulders and who was forever banging his head on low-flying doorways. They looked naked without their headsets; it was a surprise to see that some bothered to cultivate hair. Vaas was not among them – her shaved skull glinted weirdly under the dull purple bar lamps, the angular slope of her crown tossing the light back at itself. Heck, with that haircut and those nails, she looked almost as badass as _Yondu_. Although she wasn’t too big an a-hole to hang out with him. 

Peter grinned. “I can pay you back!” He sat when Vaas shunted the stool out with her boot, and caught the glass as it came skidding down the bartop, the barman recorking the bottle in between pours for a surly shake. But when he fished out his credit-purse, the Comms Officer shook her head, smile small and sharp. 

“No worries.” 

Peter’s eyes bugged. “For real?” Yondu never gave him freebies. He _pretended_ he gave him freebies, but in actuality it was always ‘do this, do that, and I’ll do this for you then hold it against you whenever you bitch about getting bog-duty after Horuz’s been through; because I coulda let my boys eat you, y’know’. This was new territory, uncharted and exciting. Peter had only been a Ravager three weeks, and while yeah, it was kinda cool hanging out with a bunch of fearsome space pirates, his mom’s hoarse lectures on _positive influences_ weighed on him like a lead lifejacket. If Vaas and her crew bought him drinks without demanding any nefarious or grimy means of compensation, didn’t that make them a fair sight more decent than the average Ravager? 

Peter’s hopes were dampened when Vaas scrumpled his hair, nails scratching lightly on his scalp. “Not in money, anyways. I got me a job you could help me out with, if you wanna earn your keep.” She grabbed her glass, nodding thanks to the barman, and took a stone-faced pull. Peter, who couldn’t sip without choking and tearing up, watched in envy and not a little respect. 

“You want me to nick something?” he hazarded. Yondu’d been trying to teach him, in between doing captain-y stuff. And while he maintained that scrubbing decks was the most promising of Peter’s future careers he _had_ seemed pleased that one time Peter’d managed to steal his Walkman out of his pocket without him noticing. 

It had, to be fair, been mostly down to luck – luck and a well-placed bottle of Kalzalorian moonshine. Peter had pleaded for his missing satchel to no avail after he’d woken shivering, dripping with fluorescent delousing gel and boasting a pair of stinging scars: one behind his ear and another on the side of his throat, entry points of cochlea and vocal translators. He’d given up hope of seeing his mum’s mixtape again, figuring it’d been jettisoned as garbage, and almost succumbed to panic when he was singing himself to sleep and couldn’t remember the third verse to _Fooled Around And Fell In Love_. Then he’d caught Kraglin on the Navdeck, humming _Ooh Child_ as he span them through space at the galaxy’s edge. A pulsing quasar had been the only entity for kliks in either direction, and Peter had almost sent them careering into it when he’d tackled the first mate around his bony knees. He’d even managed to get in a punch while Kraglin was too shocked to retaliate, Isla scrambling for the abandoned holodeck post and Yondu guffawing obnoxiously loud in the background. 

After that Peter’d been on the lookout. When he’d spotted the puffy orange pad of a speaker hanging from Yondu’s pocket, he’d decided to put his lessons to good use. Yondu had been kind enough to comply, snatching the bait as soon as Peter offered it and proceeding to pass out snoring in his chair before the empty bottle hit the floor. He hadn’t even eaten Peter in vengeance the next day – although he had threatened. 

Now the Walkman was clipped securely to Peter’s belt, and he’d determined that it was never leaving it. Music played on quiet; the headphones round his neck emitted a tinny rendition of _Moonage Daydream_ as Vaas drained the last of the pungent draught and let steam curl from her nostrils. Peter leant over the bartop, opting to nurse his drink in the hopes the brew would weaken once the vapour had dispersed, and tried to look menacing. “I’m a good thief.” 

Vaas’ tattooed eyebrows met in the middle of her forehead. When they rose, it looked like a double-arched rollercoaster. “Oh yeah? How about an actor?” 

Peter considered. Rocked his highball from side to side, listening to the spirits slap. “I can lie…?” Because wasn’t that the same thing? 

Vaas nodded. “Good enough. Finish up and come along.” 

*** 

“What d’you mean, you _left him in the bar?_ Ya don’t _leave him in a bar!_ Heck, Kraglin. Kid could find trouble in a Xandarian kindergarten. He’s probably asking a Kymellian if he’s hung like a horse right about now.” 

Yondu stomped down the gangway. He barged a trio of Ravagers out the way as he addressed his scowl to the sullen face blooming from the holo-gem on his wristpiece. Trembling under the weight of a metre-squared slab of Kree hull plating – illegal in Nova airspace, twice as tough as anything outside of the Chitauri homeworld and with a finish that smelt oddly of tangerines – their knees buckled inwards, and promptly gave out. The chasm of Knowhere’s main port gaped: a serrated cliff-face of dense-packed walkways, vertical docking bays and cargo conveyers hewn into the enamel of the Celestial’s incisors. They were saved from teetering into it by Yondu, who grabbed the edge of the plate without looking and hauled them upright – “ _Careful_ with that; you know what that sells for on the black market? You wanna go base-jumping, you drop my stock in hold first. Gottit?” 

A mumbled chorus of yessirs. 

Yondu rolled his eyes and turned his anger to where it was needed. “As for _you_ – you better make this right. The fuck were you _thinking?_ ” 

*** 

Now, Kraglin was no master at information extraction. He left that job to Horuz, who had been dropped on his head too often as a child and was devoid of empathy, respect for authority, and qualms about torture alike; or to Morlug, whose chewed-up face had an interesting way of making wimpier folks squeal without her having to lay a finger on them. In comparison to their well-practiced and subtle techniques – or, in the case of Horuz, his artfully amateurish wielding of a pair of pliers – Kraglin, when faced with a situation where knowledge was needed and the bearer uncooperative, usually relied on a namedrop of his captain. When that didn’t work, a reminder of that classic Hraxian spine-pulling trick did the job. Or a knife brought into friendly proximity with an eyeball. And thus he made his way around the bar, isolating the body part with the highest ratio of nerve endings to squishiness on every Hordesmen, Ravagers, and off-duty Corpsmen that he pinned to the wall, as he spat his question through gritted teeth: 

“Where’s the kid?” 

“The what?” 

Kraglin’s knife scratched the flared flap of the A’askavarian’s nostril. It quivered around the tip of the blade. “Don’t be fuckin’ cute, I ain’t got the patience. Kid. Now.” 

Suffice to say, Yondu hadn’t been pleased when he’d found out that Kraglin had been the last one to see the brat. Or that he’d stormed off and left said brat to fend for itself in the middle of a grubby Knowhere dive populated by bounty hunters, scavengers, smugglers, outlaws, and other such assorted rapscallions. Kraglin had the distinct memory of “The fuck were you _thinking?_ ”, of replying with an un-thought out “The fuck do you _care?_ ” and facing a whole minute of stony silence before a soft whistle had him dashing for the bar. 

Yeah, it was over the comms. And _yeah_ , Yondu’s range wasn’t _that_ good. Whatever. 

So here he was. Patching his mistake. Growing more irritated with every evasive mumble and shrug. Wondering which one he’d strangle first, once he’d achieved his objective: the brat for getting himself into this, or his unwanted companion. 

Yondu’s sense of humour was more sadistic than Kraglin had assumed. Or else he’d already tired of his big, despicably handsome puppy – whatever the reason, he’d ordered Axley to be his first mate’s back up. The two of them had picked their way methodically around the bar with Kraglin’s glare leaving his present interrogation victim only to bore into Axley’s back, and Axley ignoring him with a determination that was as valiant as it was futile. 

Kraglin didn’t like him. 

For all his unbroken nose, full set of teeth, and four functioning bonny blue eyes (damn him), Axley was still a Ravager, and Kraglin wouldn’t put it past any Ravager to set something like this up if they were after a bite at being top dog. (Second top dog. Top dog who occasionally got to top toppermost dog.) For all he knew, Axley had Peter stowed on his M-ship and was waiting for him to drop his guard so he could sneak off and retrieve him and claim all the glory… Well, Kraglin was gonna pluck _that_ astrochicken before it flew the coop. No way was Axley getting out of his sight – 

“Yeah, I saw ‘im,” said the barman, stoically unperturbed by Kraglin’s grip of the cone that held his wizened neck straight. He continued polishing his glasses as Kraglin, crouched like a bony and particularly malignant gargoyle atop the counter, bared his piranha-like teeth and clacked them loud enough to make Axley – on the other side of the room and pretending not to be eavesdropping – jump. 

“Gonna need more than that, friend,” he growled. The barman’s cloth made another squeaking revolution. He lifted the tumbler, blew away an invisible speck, spat, and wiped again. Looked Kraglin placidly in the eye. 

“Left with one o’yours. Tall lass, shaved head. Skinny like you, with the same set o’chompers. Dunno where they went.” 

Kraglin relaxed. Marginally. At least it was a Ravager – not that he’d really thought Peter stupid enough to wander off with a Hordesman (or worse, a Nova Officer) but by now he’d learnt not to write anything off where that pest was concerned. Far more trouble than he was worth. If only Yondu’d handed him over to his papa like he was _supposed_ to… 

He relaxed his grip on the barman’s collar, enough to let the plastic remould to its original shape. “Gimme a direction,” he said. The barman flapped his rag at the eastern exit. Kraglin nodded. Jumped off the bar, and whistled sharply for Axley. “Oi, idiot! Heel!” 

*** 

“So what’s it you want me to do?” Peter asked. His chest was all warm and fuzzy, and he could taste liquor in the back of his throat. If felt as if the fumes were curling from his gut and clogging his sinuses; an intoxicating miasma that slid fingers into the cracks in his mind and whispered that he could conquer the whole galaxy, if he only tried. His fists tightened into hard little knots. “Lie? Who to?” 

“All in good time!” Vaas grinned, ruffling his hair again with no care for Peter’s wince. It was bad enough when Yondu did that. At least he didn’t have claws. 

The Ravager comms crew had formed a ragtag circle, protecting him from the buffet of pickpockets and worse. Peter’s vision of the passing tunnel was blotted by the pendulum-swing of their blurry red legs. Everything looked a little melty around the edges, as if there were multiple images overlaid. Peter examined his hands with gleeful curiosity. Was this what it was like to be drunk? To be an adult? 

From what he could make out, they were walking through one of Knowhere’s interior corridors: a hollowed vein whose walls had atrophied to porous stone. The roof was stitched with fat plastic tubes which siphoned spinal fluid uphill from the vats by the Celestial’s exposed cervical vertebrae via a system of plungers and valves. Exhaust flues wobbled heat-haze at the tunnel’s edge, and the lights that’d been crudely patched into the spongey, calcified tissue hummed dim. There were squatters and mod-addicts crouched with their backs to the walls, warming their hands over the vents and shuffling to the side when they heard the warning rattle that foretold of a blast of superheated air. Eyes of all types – cycloptic, compound, mechanical; anthropoid and arthropod – averted from their passage, then swivelled to appraise the dark red backs once they’d passed. Peter, for all his liquid courage, shivered and pressed a little closer to Vaas’ side. 

“What’re they looking at?” he whispered. Vaas’ smile was a needle-toothed tease. 

“Probably wanna eat ya.” 

Peter scowled. “Why does everyone keep _saying_ that?” 

“Cause you make that face whenever we do.” 

Peter attempted to correct the face in question, but only succeeded in exaggerating it. Vaas chuckled and patted him on the cheek, nail scraping a curl of skin from his temple – by accident, he was sure. “Alright. We’re nearly there. Now listen close, because we only get one shot. And remember – it’s all a joke, yeah?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Yeah I just wanted to introduce Vaas. Vaas the ass. STOP SCRATCHING PETER**
> 
> **Also - wanna know what a Kymellian is, and why one might be 'hung like a horse'? Google it. ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Yondu parts with thirteen credits, and Peter teaches Vaas how to pinky-swear.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Yay, new chappie! And earlier than expected~ :D**

Yondu wasn’t ‘pissed’, because you didn’t get pissed about things you didn’t care about. Yondu was ‘mildly aggravated’ that Quill hadn’t buzzed home to mention he and Vaas were taking a roadtrip, and even more mildly aggravated that Kraglin had let him. Didn’t he know that if Yondu was ignoring the kid to make a point, then that made him Kraglin’s duty? It was practically his job description: _always have your captain’s back_. Or, in this case, his Terran. 

“Can’t handle one damn thing,” he griped as he strode down the alley, earning nervous stares from the scummy assembly of streetrats on their way to count the day’s spoils. “Heck knows why I keep that idiot around –“ 

One scamp, either new to the streets or blessed with an inverted survival instinct, made a messy scrabble for his pocket. A grapple with an oily-feeling jerkin and a pair of emaciated arms soon halted that, and Yondu shook the little thief until the ten-piece credit chit she’d snatched slipped from her fingers and rattled into the clogged and stinking drainpipe. “Aw, _seriously?_ ” Yeah, it had only been one chit; and if the kid was willing to risk limbs for it, the coin’s loss would be considerably harder on her. But money was money. And Yondu liked money. Just as he _didn’t_ like annoying little brats who had the gumption to steal from him – like a certain Terran. 

Although to be fair, Quill’d conked him out with moonshine first. At least this kid stole face-to-face. 

Taking a quick peek behind to scope the alleys for loitering crew, Yondu gave the kid a sharp flick to her ear rather than the boot to the gut that was expected. “Alright. Poor choice of pocket. Now fuck off and find someone nicer to rob.” 

She grabbed his wrist. 

Yondu stopped, more out of shock than as a result of any exerted force. Then considered what any out-of-sight watcher might be seeing, and snarled, yanking away. “You’re a bit small for a mugger, brat. Now fuck off, before I _make you_.” A twitch of his trenchcoat revealed the arrowtip. It glimmered as the kid watched, red specks reflected in the pox-crusted whites of her eyes. 

“I saw him,” she rasped. “I saw your Terran, I did.” 

Yondu considered. Kraglin had given him the description of Peter’s current chaperone – Vaas. Good girl, bit bony for his taste; had a weird sense of humour and that involved pumping awful Hraxian club music over the intercom while he was on his nightshift then claiming it was accidental when questioned. He’d been planning on comming her to get a location, but – 

“Where?” he asked. Anybody could be paid off to lead you into an ambush, and Yondu trusted these snot-nosed Knowhere wastrels approximately a tenth of the distance he could throw them. Although, if the Horde were looking to ambush him on _Knowhere_ of all places, they must be as daft as the Collector tasteless. There wasn’t a square inch of the Celestial’s skull that Yondu hadn’t utilized for some shady trade or another. He’d see a corner coming a mile off, and when he did… Well, he did a darn good impression of a trapped rat. Only with more whistles. 

Kid snuffled. Messily wiped her nose, then held out the same hand. 

Not a newbie after all. Yondu made a show of muttering as he scooped another three chits from his pocket and deposited them in the girl’s palm. Couldn’t be too generous, or he’d be pressed for more at every opportunity – by this one, and every other little critter that was peeping from the mouths of the tunnels gouged into the porous tissue above. The children of Knowhere were an unthought of commodity, in every market but espionage: in that, they excelled. News of this transaction would ripple out through a thousand whispers, passed behind a thousand tiny cupped hands. They’d have known Quill was missing before he did. 

But Yondu couldn’t do nothing about that. Tell ‘em to scarper, another lot took their place – and the others’d run straight to the nearest Hoard schooner and blab that the Ravager captain was out on his lonesome. Not that Yondu couldn’t handle whatever they threw at him, but this had taken too long already. His boys got antsy once a rest stop was over. That the source of the holdup was Quill wouldn’t pass notice long. When they figured it out, Yondu’d be sauntering onto ship to face yet another long list of reasons why it was in the Ravagers’ best interests to wrap Quill in parcel tape and dump him off at the nearest intergalactic postbox, stamped and addressed for Spartax. 

So Yondu kept his stance relaxed and his eyes on the girl in front of him, and pulled out another chit, along with a string of lint. The lint was followed by several voluminous complaints, when she frowned and beckoned for more. They got to nine before the dynamic and vibrant imagery of his threats became too much for her to handle. She nodded. Held her spoils up to the light, and bit each metal disc: careful and precise, canine clamping the crimped edge. Then twizzled them onto the side unadorned with Nova Prime’s profile, and blew. When her breath failed to condense – a sign of genuineness that only the best forgers could imitate – she treated Yondu to a grin that was as yellow as his and rather more gappy, and said, all in a rush – “He’s chin-level. Bunker G140-Z.” 

Yondu nodded. “Right.” Then grabbed her arm and tugged her in close while he prodded at the buttons of the wristpiece. If that location didn’t match up, that meant there was someone gunning for him, and this girl would have the answer. “Hey, Vaas? Where are ya?” Only static. Stupid Celestial latent brainwaves or whatever, jamming the systems. Yondu shook the stupid thing – the kid reverberated as collateral – and tried again. “Vaas?” 

Still static. 

Yondu slowly released the call switch. You never had to hail Vaas twice. If it was electronic, that lass would make it sit up and beg. Heck, if Knowhere was having _wetdreams_ , it wouldn’t register. “Kid?” he said. 

The kid, who’d been moodily twisting her wrist in Yondu’s fist, looked up. “What you want now?” 

“When you say ya saw Quill… Who was he with?” 

The kid hummed and rubbed her chin. Then opened and closed her captive hand. Another two chips were reluctantly parted with, and made their immediate passage between her remaining teeth. 

“Bald chick,” she said around the mouthful. “Bunch o’Ravager-reds, all shapes and sizes.” Right. Vaas and her crew. He’d already figured that much. Yondu nodded along, motioning for her to expand. 

“Anyone… else?” 

Her smile turned sly – Yondu bristled on instinct, because like hell was he giving up more credits. But when the girl delivered her answer, his shoulders stiffened for an entirely different reason. 

“Shit! You serious?” 

“As there’s twelve credits in my hand.” 

Yondu looked. There were eleven. He sighed and made it an even number. 

“Yeah, I’m serious. Now, it were a pleasure doing business with ya, sir…” Yondu followed the pointed gaze down to where he was squeezing that half-starved twig of an arm. He released her, and found himself wondering if another little street rat had been this wily when he’d been running through the slums of Hrax – but shook the familiarity away before it could coalesce. 

“Go on then. And if you’re lying, you’ll see me again.” 

“What?” the kid asked. “As a ghost?” 

But she danced out of reach before Yondu could give her the kick she deserved. 

*** 

Vaas dismissed Yondu’s call icon with the click of a long pink nail. Then turned to Peter and treated him to a conspiratorial smirk. “Our secret?” 

Peter grinned and held up a pinkie to hook through hers. “Our secret!” 

Vaas considered the finger from every angle. Then hesitantly bumped her own against it. Peter laughed and showed her – “No, no! Like this! A pinkie-promise – it means you trust each other.” 

“Trust, huh?” 

“Yeah! I used to do ‘em with my mom. Before she, uh. Died. They say that if you break your word, your pinkie’ll snap!” 

Vaas narrowed dubious eyes at her finger, twined around Peter’s smaller one and half-crooked so as not to scratch. “Really?” 

That’s what he loved about space. People were so… _different_. And silly, sometimes. Peter giggled. “No, not _really_. It’s just a saying, y’know?” The brush of cool air as Vaas untangled her palm from his was oddly disappointing – Hraxian, like Kraglin: always burnt a few degrees hotter – and Peter shoved his hands into his pockets to chase the warmth. 

“Just a saying,” she repeated. 

“Yeah.” 

“Good.” She extended the digit and contracted it again, nail glistening like raw gristle. “I will need all of these, for what I’m about to do.” 

*** 

_Meet me G tunnel now. Y._

Kraglin, in the process of clambering up the long steep incline that disgorged traffic from Knowhere’s throat, swore and started heading back down. 

“Couldn’t message me five fuckin’ minutes earlier, _oh no_ , he’s gotta wait until I’m almost at the ship. Jackass.” 

“What’s going on?” Axley asked, trotting to keep up. Kraglin shouldered him away with a growl. 

“You’re getting as far away from me as you can, if you got any sense…” 

A buzz from Axley’s wristpiece. 

_You too._

Well, fuck it all. 

“Kraglin?” called Isla from ahead. “Where you off to?” 

Ignoring Axley, who was squinting at the elusive message as if his four blue eyes could charm out its secrets, Kraglin stood on his tiptoes and spotted the diminutive figure blending into the gaggle of redcoats who clustered the Celestial’s wisdom teeth like germs in a decaying mouth. Which – well, they kinda were. The Ravagers had taken over this portion of the dock. The galleon crew had enjoyed their off-day in accordance to where they fell on the cycling work roster, and there’d been a steady in-and-out stream of M-ships since Yondu’d first declared the holiday forty-two hours back. Things were clanking up to operational speed again, as the last shift-set trudged to their stations. 

Kraglin ought to be up there shouting at folks. Might make him feel a bit better too. But orders was orders. 

“Sorry!” he hollered. “Go on without us! Captain’s got another job!” He knew better than to mention what that ‘job’ was. Crew got mighty touchy about the Terran – mostly on behalf of the payday they’d missed out on and the questions it invited regarding their captain’s susceptibility to _sentiment_ ; partly because of said Terran himself. 

Isla shot him a thumbs up, and turned to bawl at the pack of rookies under her command, telling them to look lively before she ground them up, dried them out, and sold them as packets of nutrient powder that fermented spinal fluid into fuel. Kraglin had to hide his grin. The scowl became infinitely more genuine when Axley tapped his shoulder. 

“Uh. So. Where we going?” 

With the big guy standing downhill, they were almost of a height. Kraglin folded his arms, hoisted his chin, and used every vantage that the thirty percent gradient gave him to loom in, forcing Axley to rock dangerously backwards. “We’re going chin-level. And you are gonna stay right behind me, do everything I say, and not say a word. Got it?” 

There was a long silence. Then – “What if you order me to talk?” May the cosmos preserve him. Kraglin examined him in scathing despair. What had Yondu been _thinking…?_ Axley’s blink was quadruply guileless. “Uh, I got something on my face?” 

On the plus side, he was too dumb to threaten his ranking. No matter how many abs he was packing beneath that stupid leather jacket – which everyone knew he’d stitched to be a size too small; it was _so_ obvious, and why did he bother pretending otherwise? 

Kraglin resettled on his heels, allowing Axley to level out at a position that was as gravitationally stable as possible while balancing on the incline of Knowhere’s shrivelled tongue. Then barged past hard enough to make him windmill again. 

“C’mon,” he growled. “Let’s get this over with.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Yondu is, as ever, a kind and loving guardian to children. Axley is a peach.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Yondu does not know the meaning of patience and Kraglin does not know the meaning of haste.**

As tempting as it was to march in guns blazing – or arrow sizzling – and slay every last goon on the Crab’s payroll, Yondu was all too aware of the qualms the old tech-guru had about killing kids. All zero of them. In fact, those qualms would delve into minus-numbers the moment Crab thought that harming Quill would hurt Yondu. Not that it _would_ , of course – but Yondu was still mad at the kid for using his favourite dashboard collectibles for target practice, and Quill wasn’t allowed to die until he’d paid penance. And there was always Vaas’ crew to consider. He _could_ promote a new outfit to the comms boards, vet ‘em for access to the ship’s internal feeds and train ‘em up. But that would take _effort_. And after this omnishambles of a holiday, all Yondu wanted was to go to his cabin and conk out until he was next needed to shoot or yell at something. Might even bring Kraglin – but only if he showed up in the next five minutes. 

Huffing, Yondu propped himself against the wall and set to slotting plasma-clips into the rifles. He’d nabbed them on the way, enlisting a small army of urchins to carry them, and now had an artillery that’d make a Kree Accuser weep spilt on the stained metal floor. Kraglin and Axley might want some extra armaments. And if they snuck a bunch to Vaas, the comms crew would cause enough of a ruckus that they all might get out alive. 

Guns wren’t half a lot of fuss though. How any species made it out the primordial soup without yaka, Yondu had no idea. 

Here, in the burrows that wormed through Knowhere’s yawning jaw, creatures of every shape and colour accumulated. They clogged the narrow market strips like fat in an artery, bartering over mod-extensions and memory chips, tuning their pistols and tinkering with the kick-activation on their jetboots. The dingy chill of the upper levels gave way: in its place came the geometric angles of a modder who’d integrated himself into his shopfront, the crackle of keyring soldering irons, the acrid stench of plasma eating through steel. This was the biggest underground tech hub skrullside of Betelgeuse. You could buy anything from Shi’ar surgical equipment to antique nukes – all for a steep price, unless you knew how to haggle. 

The Crab was known to be worth the extra credits. Around the base of this Celestial root canal, a crowd pulsed that put the rest of the market to shame. The noise was a discordant hubbub, a background of whirs and grinds and mechanical clunks through which the occasional screech of honing metal pierced like fingernails scraping spaceglass, and there was a sour taste to the air, burnt plastic and ozone. Yondu could see the gates from here – two hewn chunks of plaque, carved with the Crab’s insignia. 

Apparently, Celestials hadn’t been big on flossing. Not that he was one to judge. 

It took a lot to arouse notice. A Ravager admiral muttering under his breath about idiot lag-about Hraxians and prepping enough light weaponry to kit a small platoon might just do the trick. But Yondu wasn’t worried. He slammed the last crackling cartridge into the rifle’s break-action, snapping shut the barrels with automatic ease. Let ‘em know they were coming. Crab’s lairs were always vaultlike; big, flashy, tough to crack. The scamp he’d collared had mentioned a crawlway through the ducts, but Yondu’d already drawn too much notice to bother with stealth. Only way he was getting in was via the front door, and there were enough scuttle-cams posted between here and there to announce his arrival long before he knocked. 

So. Stand off. What came next? Crab’d conduct an interview – holographic on his part, ‘cause heaven forbid that old geezer actually get his hands dirty. They’d posture and snark until they’d sussed terms. Then arrange a meet, exchange hostages for credits, and all would be on their way. No necessary casualties. 

Only thing was, with a crew waiting on his orders to blast off, Yondu didn’t have time or patience for _negotiation_. And Kraglin’s five minutes were up. 

A metal-on-metal chitter from above. Yondu looked up. Caught the arachnid jitter of a scuttle cam’s legs as it backpedalled into the vent shaft. He flipped off its unblinking red eye. “Tell the Crab I wanna audience. Now.” 

*** 

Kraglin jogged into the hollowed core of the Celestial’s chin, sweat gathering under his jacket. Upper Knowhere was cold and barren, but lower Knowhere was _muggy_ , and the chemical brews churned out by the cold-construction tech factories left a pollutant stain on the mist. Kraglin smacked his lips. Just like home. This bit even _looked_ like Hrax, what with all the street children. One of whom sauntered over and popped to a brazen salute. 

“You the Ravager mate?” 

Axley thundered up behind him, puffing, as Kraglin narrowed his eyes. “Who’s asking?” 

“The girl with a present from your boss.” 

“Kraglin – that passage you told me was a shortcut – led me up to the brain centre – almost got shot by one of the Collector’s girls for trespassing – think your map’s wrong –“ 

“Shut up,” said Kraglin. Gave the girl a once-over, and rubbed his stubbly jaw. “What sorta present?” Yondu’d sent him the bare bones of the job on the way down. _Crab’s got Quill and Vaas. We get ‘em out again._ But knowing the boss, this ‘present’ could be anything from an EMP-grenade to a new trinket that he wanted unbroken, at the possible expenditure of Kraglin’s less-favoured organs. 

“These.” She snapped her fingers. Three more girls came forwards, high gravity dwellers dressed in identical rags. Their eyes were quick and untrusting. They got within five foot, then unhooked a veritable armoury of fully loaded plasma rifles from around their scraggy torsos and tossed them at Kraglin’s boots. 

Kraglin boggled down at the collection. Yondu’d certainly ensured he had plenty of choice. “Those?” he repeated weakly. 

The trio merged back into the huddle of ripped clothes and dirty skin, as the leader of the street rats treated him to a wide and gap-ridden grin. “Those.” 

“And I ‘spect he’s gone on ahead? Alone?” 

“Yup. Said – I quote – _if you slaggers show up late to the party I’m promoting Horuz._ ” 

_Jackass._ “Right.” Kraglin glanced at the scuttle-cam that was skulking along the seam between metal and flesh by the nearest shopfront. Then pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed, and stooped to retrieve a rifle. “Axley?” 

Axley, breath already recovered – Kraglin hoped his refractory period wasn’t so stellar elsewhere – set to strapping pistols and automatics to every inch of brawn his beefy shoulders had to boast. “Yessir?” 

“Captain wants us to gatecrash his meet.” Kraglin slung another rifle strap over shoulder, and tucked a pair of nifty rapid-fire blasters besides the ones already holstered in his belt. Then picked the meatiest gun of the bunch, cocked with a resounding clunk, and shot the scuttle-cam through the eye. 

The urchins ducked from his path as he began to walk, carving a clear wedge through the traders as they crushed against the passage walls to make way. The Ravager coat gleamed liquid under the strobing sparks of a welding torch, light sliding off it like oil, and his grin was jagged and deadly. “Let’s go make some noise.” 

*** 

“Scuse me! Coming through; out the way – move it, fatso!” 

Yondu elbowed onwards. This close to the gates, the people were almost as numerous as the appliances they were clutching. Analogue, digital, nanotech, fleshmod: Crab could fix it all. Might even upgrade it if he was feeling generous. Or experimental – which had a tendency to result in vast tracts of land being rendered uninhabitable for the next millennium. In fact, it was usually wise to throw in a little on-the-side to encourage his cronies to sate their scientific curiosity elsewhere. 

A few folks attempted to shove back, but most were too busy protecting their armfuls of fizzing circuitry. Yondu scoffed. Give him yaka any day. 

…On that note, this was taking too long. He wet his lips and whistled. 

It was a pure note, no trills. Pitch set height and amplitude speed, while the punctuation of the notes affected motion. A steady whistle like this kept the arrow moving ahead of him smoothly, and at a constant pace. Took a bit of learning to maintain, but damn, if it wasn’t effective. 

Within a blink, the crowds cleared. A quintet of scuttle-cams crawled after him, their forelegs scratching his heels as they flanked in tight formation. Yondu held the whistle until his lungs ached. Then let it drop, the arrow hanging motionless in the air, tethered to its sheathe by a shimmering thread of red radiation. He strolled past the whispering and pointing medley of customers-to-be. Grabbed his arrow, and used its solid fletching to bang three times on the door. 

There was a long silence. And then, in a hiss of air as cold and stale as that from the deepest crypt, the Crab’s vault cracked. 

The dark sliver grew to an inch in diameter. Yondu gave the gate a kick and it glided the rest of the way, spilling the variegated lights of the tech district into the dim cavern like a rainbow regurgitated from the throat of a world-eater. 

“Don’t worry,” he said to the woman next in line. “Won’t be long.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **:facepalms: YONDUUUUUUU**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **Question: how many times do you think Kraglin's uttered the phrase 'Yondu? Yon-don't.'**


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Yondu pays the Crab a visit.**

He reached ten steps before the skittering scuttle-cams were joined by heavier tread. 

Two of them. One on each side, falling in from invisible tributaries. Crab liked his headquarters dry and dark, the best conditions for picking apart delicate circuitry. His henchmen wore night-vision gear, insectoid helmets with harlequin-green eyes, and tramped through the lightless labyrinth as if it were a bright summer day. Any newcomers tottered blind, guided only by the drag of their hands along the mined tooth. But Yondu’s eyes and implant exuded a glow of their own. He bobbed through the gloom like a jellyfish in deep ocean, lighting his own way. 

“So,” he said conversationally, tossing a glance to the guard on his right. Hefty lass, biceps big as his head. Arrow to the throat would be quickest, if it came to it. “You come here often?” 

Left-guard bumped his spine with something that felt suspiciously like an electric stun-baton – depowered to preserve the darkness. For now. “No talking.” 

Yondu shrugged. Fiddled with his wristpiece instead, fumbling out the buttons by touch alone. He kept his arm crossed in front of his belly so the guards couldn’t see, scanning the walls for scuttle-cams. Assured that Crab wasn’t watching – or at least, had the decency to pretend otherwise – he tapped out a series of quick messages for Kraglin: _I’m in. Ask kids 4 other access. Guns to Vaas & crew._ Then, after a brief consideration – _Get Quill out first._

There. All bases covered. 

Another prod at his shoulder brought him to a halt. The luminescence from his implant spilt across seven smooth triangles, set into a circle as wide as he was tall and then half again. Their tips formed the corolla of a steel-hewn rose. 

“Cute door.” 

“I said no talking.” 

“Right.” 

The Guard on his right reached over his shoulder. Her boobs scraped his armour plates – the shockstick digging into his kidney subdued any comments that might have been pending. A swipe of her gloved palm over the panel and the petals peeled apart. Yondu snorted. 

“Would’ve thought the Crab’d invest in better security.” 

Left-guard snorted right back, and louder. “Thought you was a thief. Don’tcha know a psionic lock when you see one?” Then realized he’d broken his own rule and prodded Yondu over the retracting panels with a few more volts than was strictly necessary. “And what part of ‘no talking’ don’t you understand?” 

Ravager leathers might stave off chemical burns and coolant leaks, but they didn’t do shit for insulation. Yondu spasmed, staggered, and span with a twitching snarl. “I’ll give ya _no talking_ –“ 

The door, now between him and his escort, clamped shut. So did Yondu’s mouth. He sent Kraglin a quick scan of the palm reader and the words _psionic lock, work it out_ , motion hidden by his coat. Then turned to greet his host. “Crab. Lookin’ freaky as ever.” 

The Crab’s wizened lips made a pucker associated with elsewhere on the anatomy. “Udonta. A pleasure, I’m sure.” 

This room was brighter than the adjoining corridor. An octagon of sleek black glass, polished to a mirror, against which the occupants stood out like coloured cut-outs. Crab’s hologram hunched at its centre, withered and vulturous. The multitool appendages grafted to his shoulderblades had morphed into a pair of pincers. They circled lazily above his head like snakes scenting the air. 

Yondu padded forwards, sparing a wave for Vaas and the others. Each Ravager had an arm twisted past the point of pain by an insect-helmeted guard. As for Quill, there was no sign. Yondu pretended not to notice. “So,” he said, stopping in front of the Crab and spreading his arms. “Here we are. Pair of old friends.” 

“I wouldn’t call us _friends_ , Udonta. Not after Janadva-9.” 

“Hey, I apologized for that…” 

“You did not!” 

“Ain’t my fault ya couldn’t hear me over the explosion…” 

Vaas’ snicker became a ragged moan when the guard wrenched her shoulder an inch further out of its socket. “Boss… Hurry it up.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Yondu stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked the Crab up and down. “So? What d’you want?” 

The Crab tipped until Yondu could see hollow eyesockets over the reflective black glasses. His smile was bloodless and cold. “No asking after your Terran?” 

“Oh, he ain’t here?” Yondu made a show of looking about. “Huh. Yeah, I guess. Kid’s useful, when he ain’t blasting his music… Speaking of, you must be getting sick of that by now. Perhaps you oughta pay me to take him off your hands?” 

Vaas managed to stifle her giggle – luckily for the tendons in her arm. If Crab had eyes, they’d be narrowed. 

“You think I won’t dissect him in front of you, for the pleasure of making you squirm?” 

“Pass,” said Yondu. “I just washed this coat, and Terrans splat.” 

Crab drew himself up. “You think I don’t see through your bluffs?” 

Yondu shrugged. “Be kinda surprised if you didn’t. If ya thought I’d _really_ washed this coat in the last year...” 

How long would it take Kraglin to crawl through the ventilation pipes? Then trick the Guards into opening the interior door – because psionic locks were a bugger, and could only be disengaged wilfully. Yondu hoped he got a move on. His supply of one-liners wasn’t endless and as fun as it was pissing the Crab off, his comms crew weren’t going to be much use in a firefight if they all had dislocated arms. 

Crab’s sneer made the wrinkles around his mouth crease like crumpled tissue paper. He didn’t raise his voice, but addressed it to the inside of his high neckhole, where there must be a secreted mic. “Bring out the boy. We’ll see how much Udonta thinks he’s worth.” 

The walls, floor and ceiling were all tiled in the same glossy obsidian, seamless and smooth. The panel slid open in a silent concertina, then shut just as soundlessly, melding into the blank black glass. Only difference was, now there were three guards and one small Terran in front of it rather than behind. One small, shivering, and very scared looking Terran, who looked dangerously close to waterworks. 

“Y-Yondu?” 

“Keep your mouth shut, kid.” Yondu’s glare might be able to curdle blood, but it didn’t do so well against tears. Quill’s lip started to wibble. Aw _hell_. 

Crab laughed, a corpselike-croak. “I thought you said the boy was _useful._ Look at him. So _scared_.” 

He couldn’t have done a better job at making Quill buck up if he tried. The boy drew himself as tall as he could get – not very – chin stiffening from its jelly-impersonation, and made a futile attempt at shouldering off the guards. “I am _not_ scared!” 

Vaas coughed. Quill’s expression faltered, and he slowly sunk down again. “Uh. I mean. Please rescue me, captain.” 

Oh- _kay._

Vaas must’ve warned the kid against standing up to Crab. Wise lass. Yondu’d thank her later – by not docking her next cut by more than half, seeing as technically, this was still her fault. He turned to Crab. “Yeah, his acting needs some work. But it’s amazing where folk’s’ll let you go, if you drag along a kid. So m’willing to go halves on their bounties –“ A thumb over his shoulder at the comms crew – “And toss in another hundred for the boy.” 

As if. Yondu parted with credits like hungry babies from teats. But an opening gambit of that magnitude wasn’t outside of what’d be expected; Crab would egg him up and Yondu’d whittle him down, and then Kraglin would swing in from the sidelines and they’d see how many bug-helmeted minions they could butcher before the Crab’s hologram fizzled out. 

At least, that was the plan. 

Crab waved a lazy hand. “It seems you weren’t lying when you claimed not to care for him.” 

Well, Yondu wasn’t gonna deny that. “Just a snack I picked up on some Terran planet,” he lied. “Wasn’t as hungry as I thought, so kept him around.” 

“Very well.” Crab shrugged. “He’s of no use to me either. Kill him.” 

Quill’s eyes took up half his face as the guards switched on their shocksticks with a crackle, and amped the green lightning until it spat and flared. “Hey – what? You said – you said – Vaas!” 

*** 

A sharp whistle. 

The shockstick hit the floor, charge fizzling fractal cracks in the glass. It was followed by the three guards, all with neat penny-sized holes bored through their helmets’ bulbous temples. Peter stumbled backwards, nausea rising in his throat. The guards had looked plastic and weird, swaddled neck to ankle in black bodysuits. But underneath they were flesh, and flesh scorched and sizzled when it came into contact with concentrated gamma radiation, and (as Peter was discovering) smelt disturbingly like barbeque. A trickle of smoke wound from the perforated helmets. Yondu caught his arrow and span to face his captive comms crew. 

“Don’t just stand there!” he snapped at Peter. “Ground, now!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Short chapter! Next one'll be up tomorrow (I hope). Let's just say that one'll get us up-to-date with the present. ;)**
> 
>  
> 
> **Anyway, for now I leave you with the image of Kraglin trying to shunt Axley through child-sized ducts. Enjoy.**
> 
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> ****


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which there is a fight, and many years of bad luck are accrued.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I hope this chappie doesn't move too quick. I cut out a scene with Axley and Kraglin in the tunnel because it felt kinda extraneous when I read over it (sorry Atna! :P) but hopefully you can piece together what happened~ x**

Thankfully, the mooks didn’t wait to execute the comms crew before retaliating. Yondu slammed belly-first into the deck, Quill not one second later. Arcs of lightning blazed from each shockstick and pulverized the wall. The glass shattered in a chiming cacophony, shards raining down over Yondu’s back. He wrapped his arms over his head, trusting the coat to deflect the worst of the damage.

Crab wasn’t big on office vegetation. Shame really – helped reduce stress levels at work, or some sorta bullshit. Also a shame because it put a crimp in Yondu’s empathic aiming abilities; with no lower life forms around whose nerve-nets he could tap, he was restricted to visuals. Which meant, when you were trying to kill a plethora of bad guys in close vicinity with your own troops while lying face down on the floor, you were running the risk of friendly fire. Nope, Yondu couldn’t whistle until he was back on his feet. Thankfully, shocksticks had a recharge time – albeit a short one. The second the green flashes died he burst upwards, pushing off his arms, and ran for Quill, glancing over his shoulder and taking out the nearest guard as he did so. 

One crewmember free. Seven to go. 

“Reinforcements!” Crab’s hologram shrieked. His vocals jerked about the octaves as the second volley smacked the floor inches from Yondu’s boots. He hauled Quill up by the armpits and flung them both to the side, rolling to avoid the scything electric blades. Kid got a bit squashed, but it was better than dead. Crab’s face was fluxing between fury and glee, although that might have more to do with his pixels malfunctioning from the static. 

“Huh,” said Yondu. Picked a black splinter out of his cheek. And ran directly at the plinth, dragging Peter along. Lightning seared the edge of the kid’s coat; he screamed like he was trying to deafen him – unnecessary, given that the air was already popping with noisy charge, and each crash of energy slammed the glass like a physical weight. Or, in this case, the holocrystals maintaining Crab’s hovering likeness. Not that he wouldn’t still be patching audial feeds from the scuttle-cams, or giving orders over his men’s internal relays – but at least Yondu didn’t have to keep looking at his mug. 

He managed to shoot the woman holding Vaas before the seven-pointed door hissed open and a crowd of guards poured in. Each was armed with a shockstick. 

Except the two at the back. 

“About fuckin’ time,” Yondu muttered. Whistled the remaining comms crew free, and shoved Quill roughly aside to let a jagged green sickle slice the air between. Everything tasted of electricity and split nitrogen, and Quill’s hair was prickled like a spooked porcupig. The kid landed hard on his side. One of the guards jabbed their shockstick towards him, and Yondu tensed in preparation to whistle – when they were apprehended by Kraglin, ripping off the buglike helmet and firing a round into his unprotected belly. 

Yondu didn’t have time for salutations. Just dashed over and unbuckled a pair of pistols from round his first mate’s waist to toss at Vaas and Neets. 

“Make yourselves useful!” he snapped, as Axley put a guard down for the count with a punch that could’ve felled an overgrown flora colossus. “Axley! If you ain’t gonna use them guns, give ‘em to folks who will!” 

“Yessir!” Axley deposited his load, kicking rifles and pistols to the remaining comms crew. They formed up, a motley medley of scars, skin-colours, and grimy red leather, and faced the oncoming swarm. Kraglin even remembered to grab Quill, hustling him to stand between them as the guards spilt into the glass-strewn room, their fractured reflections looming from every angle. Yondu saw his grin, crooked and yellow, bounced back a thousand times. His whistle cut through the tinkle of falling glass, the pant of his men’s breath, the thud of the guards’ boots as the Crab’s entire payroll charged through the dusky enamel maze. The arrow danced around them, a red dragonfly that span across a scene so still it could’ve been captured in a photograph. Fifty shocksticks levelled, and fifty blank black visors inclined. Behind him, his crew was tensed, ready to spring apart in every direction. 

“Ready?” Yondu asked. 

“Ready,” Kraglin said, bundling Quill into his side. His eyes were locked on the open door. Good lad. That was all Yondu needed to know. 

“Scatter!” he roared, and fired his arrow through the nearest guard’s heart. 

*** 

Getting through the doors was the hardest part. The backfolded petals formed a bottleneck through which guards gushed like rapids after rain. It would take a concentrated rush to pierce. 

Yondu led the charge. The guards couldn’t use their shocksticks at full power if you stayed close – too much of a risk of zapping themselves – and so he bore the tooth-rattling spike of pain as one lanced him in the shoulder, and took the opportunity to whistle him and the five behind him down. Which left, for the briefest of moments, a clear path. 

“Kraglin!” 

“On it, boss!” 

His first mate galloped past, a whirlwind of lanky legs. Quill was forced into a sprint. Yondu wrenched the shockstick out of the dead guard’s hand, applied it to his neighbour, and tossed it at the head of the mook who was moving to apprehend the pair. Even fired up it didn’t do more than bonk, the low charge siphoning harmlessly to earth through the threads woven into the guard’s bodysuit. But it was enough to distract her, and the next moment she had an arrow in place of an eyeball. 

Behind him, the fight was petering out. They were working through the guards in the main atrium, and only three casualties on their side so far – two comms guys who were past repair, and Neets, sporting a livid lightning-burn that’d charred through jacket and hip and melded leather to flesh. But she’d kept hold of her pistol, so they weren’t leaving her behind. The plump Shi’ar clung weakly to Axley’s shoulders as he battered to Yondu, bouncing head cushioned by her jowls. “Sir!” 

Yondu smacked his ass to keep him moving. “Go help Krags! The rest of ya, concentrate on them that’re comin’ in from the tunnel – we’ll be outta here in no time!” 

This was met with a round of approval. And a plasma blast, which singed Yondu’s left ear. 

He whipped around, arrow scything through the belly of a guard closing from the right, and whistled – only to jerk off the sound before he impaled Vaas’ bald skull front-to-back. She was scowling at her smoking pistol. Another comms guy went down behind her – the Kronan, torched alive with a full shockstick voltage. No time for obituaries. Yondu sent the arrow spinning through the next three guards who had moved to block their escape, yelling between breaths – 

“Hey Vaas! Careful with that thing!” 

Vaas beat the barrel on her thigh, then held it up to her eye and squinted down it. “Ain’t aiming right… I’m no good with ammo-age machinery…” 

There was another guard readying to jam his shockstick into her stomach. Yondu took him out with a rattling tone, arrow winding tightly between the tussling bodies of Ravagers and the remaining guardsmen, and stomped over to help. His arrow set up a perimeter, trajectory guided by the initial whistle and maintained with pulses from his implant, skewering any enemy who dared breach the circle. They were thinning – one final push should see them clear. 

“S’yawing left,” he decreed at last, nose scrunched as he wrestled with the adjustor dial. “Fuck. This is wedged – so you gotta swing right to compensate. Half an inch should do it.” Yondu patted her shoulder and fastened her grip around the pistol before turning and barrelling towards Kraglin, who, aided by Axley, had almost gotten Quill to the battle’s edge. “C’mon, guys! Let’s finish this!” 

“Right you are, sir,” said Vaas, and shot him in the head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please review! :kissus:**
> 
>  
> 
> **Unfortunately, it'll be a while before I get the next chappie up. I've just gotten a job (as well as studying at a high intensity university... Possibly not the best idea.) So I need to spend the next week buckled into my books. Enjoy the cliffhanger. (Yes, I am evil!)**
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> ****


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Kraglin utilizes a shockstick, Axley has doubts, and Yondu is most definitely Not Dead**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I wish I could say I was sorry, but alas.**

After that, lots of things happened at once.

“Sorry Ax,” said Neets, pressing her pistol against his curly blonde crown. She was about to pull the trigger when Kraglin smacked the barrel aside. The blast that would’ve popped his skull like a ripe grape splattered into the guard behind them, plasma chewing through helmet and face alike. His screams rang hollow. Kraglin was deafened, jarred off balance. Fear hammered a chisel down the seam of his brain. His ears were ringing and his eyes half-blinded by the flashing shocksticks, and he must have been mistaken, because there was no way that… 

“Yondu!” Peter screamed. Tried to shove towards him. Neets, growling, swung her gun around. 

“Terran brat –“ 

It should’ve been harder, killing her. But Kraglin slipped a knife under her ribs, piercing the leather-mottled rawness of her side, and let her slump from Axley in a plump puddle. He grabbed a fistful of Quill’s hair and used it to yank him back. “Get him outta here.” 

Axley was staring at the place where Yondu’d been standing with creeping horror. “Uh.” 

There were still guards all around. This wasn’t the time for dithering. Kraglin mimicked Neets, and rapped his gun warningly on the big guy’s forehead, right between the upper set of eyes. Axley jolted from the stupor with a stuttering blink. “Go. Now. I’ll get the captain.” 

Because it was just a graze, right? Nothing serious. Yondu was… dazed. Bit of concussion. Kraglin could mock him later for fainting in the middle of a firefight; for now he had to drag him out of there before someone made the damage permanent. 

Quill’s blubbering receded as Axley strode for the gates. Kraglin didn’t look back. He stepped over the fallen bodies of the guards that were cluttering the doorway. Fished a shockstick from the twitching pile, and brandished it alongside his pistol as Vaas advanced. Four comms officers were down for the count, felled by the last wave of guards and felled in turn. It was just him, her, her last two accomplices, and a room of black and red uniforms, blood leaking over the mirrored tiles. Vaas trekked red footprints as she walked, smile glacial. Kraglin held his ground. “The fuck you doing?” he asked. 

“What’s it look like?” 

Kraglin’s lips curled down. “Looks like mutiny.” 

Vaas chuckled. “Always knew you was a smart one.” 

“Crew ain’t gonna stand for this.” 

“What – for their mutineer of a captain to be ousted by another one?” She wagged her pistol mockingly from side to side. “C’mon Krags. He was compromised; you oughta know better than anyone. Ravagers are better off without him – him and that brat of his. Something me and the Crab agreed on.” Her expression lost all humour. “It’s a shame about you, though. Wouldn’t have minded keeping you on as a first mate. But if he’s compromised for the kid, you’re compromised for him.” 

Kraglin didn’t deny it. No point. She was comms officer – while the Ravagers didn’t bother with security cameras, she had the know-how to pull up feeds from anyone’s wristwatch, and they caught every word. Of course she knew. He and the boss were gonna have to be more careful, in future. Kraglin kept both weapons trained as Vaas slunk closer, and closer still. She paused when his pistol pressed on her chest, and hers on his. Around them, the remnants of the comms crew slunk like hyenas circling injured prey. 

“Drop ‘em,” Vaas said. 

Kraglin smirked. “Not likely.” 

He almost shot her when she kicked Yondu in the ribs. There wasn’t any reaction. “He’s already dead.” Lies. “You could walk away.” 

“Would ya let me?” 

Her smile had been sketched with a knifeblade. “Try me. See how far ya get.” Kraglin considered. Looked down at himself – clad in the armour of the unfortunate sod he’d ambushed and stripped. Then at Vaas, in her Ravager reds. 

Her conductive Ravager reds. 

“No thanks,” he said. Then smacked her arm aside, shot flying wide, and buried his shockstick in her gut. 

There hadn’t been time to charge the thing fully – she’d have noticed if he had. But these babies still packed a mighty punch on half-power. Vaas flew backwards and crashed into the broken mirror, glass shivering from her singed coat. 

Kraglin made the most of the surprise, hefting Yondu up under his armpits – guy was limp as a sack; couldn’t he at least _try_ and make this easier? He’d dragged him three paces before the mutineers came to their senses, rifles steadying on level with his head. _Shit_. 

Kraglin froze. Gasped inadvertently when a pair of shots rang out. Regretted it, when the Ravagers crumpled and Axley stormed out of the darkness, face as ugly as it was ever gonna get. “I’m gonna kill her,” he seethed, closing on Vaas, who groaned and weakly tried to raise her head. As tempting as that prospect was, Kraglin halted him with a hiss. 

“How’s about ya deal with clean-up _after_ we haul the captain outta here?” 

Axley’s murderous snarl wavered. Folded into something that looked worryingly akin to pity. “Kraglin –“ 

“Gimme a hand, would ya? He’s heavy.” 

“Kraglin, I don’t think…” 

Pussyfooting wasn’t helping nobody. Kraglin sighed and started the arduous task of dragging Yondu over the hillock of dead and unconscious guards that was blocking the doorway. Those who’d recovered their senses were smart enough to pretend otherwise. He took vindictive delight into digging his heels into their wounds. “He ain’t dead, okay?” 

“Look at him,” said Axley quietly. 

Kraglin did. Glanced away again. “It’s just hit his implant. Plasma ain’t gonna chew through that like it does skin and bone. Seriously. He’s fine.” He sounded so certain he almost managed to convince himself. Yondu sagged as his grip slipped, almost slithering down the heaped corpses; Kraglin barely managed to grab him in time, and swore again as his captain’s head rolled against his bicep and left a smear of liquefied crystal. “Shit, shit – Axley, help me. You gotta help me.” 

Axley dithered, eyes skating between him and Vaas, who was struggling to sit. Then flung his depleted pistols on the floor and jogged to join him. He didn’t try to pick Yondu up alone, although he probably could. Just hooked one of his arms over his shoulder and bore the brunt of the weight as the three of them staggered into the shadows of the tunnel beyond. 

*** 

Kraglin was the first to emerge from the excavated tooth. He dragged the gate open, gleaming with sweat, pupils shrunk to pinpricks at the bombardment of colour and sound. Axley didn’t really require his help in lugging their captain along, but the big guy knew better than to tell him so; he waited for Kraglin to re-join him before pulling Yondu into the light. 

Then frowned, and scanned the rapidly retreating merchants as if he was searching for one in particular. 

“Where’s Peter?” he asked. 

*** 

Peter was getting as far away as he could. Yondu was dead. He’d seen it. Like he’d seen his mom die, only _worse,_ because there’d been no warning and it’d been violent and horrible and all his fault. 

Peter thudded to a stop. He had no idea where he was, but there were tears streaking his cheeks and his eyes felt puffy and hot. He raised a tentative hand. Balled it, and knuckled the fist into his eyesocket as hard as he could bear. Vaas had said it was a _joke_! That it’d be funny! That her and Crab were gonna play a _trick_ on Yondu, not that Crab’s men would threaten to kill him; not that everyone’d start screaming and bleeding and Vaas would _shoot Yondu in the head…_

He shuddered. Axley had run in again after Kraglin, pausing only to push one of his pistols into Peter’s hands; so they were probably dead too. They were all dead, and it was because he’d lied like Vaas had told him too, so Yondu thought the comms crew were captured rather than biding their time. 

She’d killed them. And if he didn’t keep moving, she would kill him too. 

Peter locked out his trembling knees. Took a series of stiff-legged steps, then, as the joints began to loosen, transitioned to a trot and a shambling run. The gun was lightweight and plastic, looking more like a water pistol than any firearm Peter’d seen. But it weighed at the end of his arm like a dumbbell, and whenever he saw the bobbing barrel through his tears, the vibrant eruption of red from Yondu’s forehead played and replayed. By the time he’d left the excavated crevice of the Celestial’s gum he was at a full sprint, breath wheezing with panic, and the only reason he hadn’t dropped it was because his fingers were clamped too tight to relax. 

Where could he go? What could he do? Not head back to the ship, not when there were untold numbers of Vaas’ conspirators lurking. Nowhere was safe. They were gonna catch him and shoot him like they’d shot Yondu, and Peter could still see it: the whiplash jerk of his head as it absorbed the plasma’s flaming tongue then spat it out the other side, and he was crying too hard to see… 

Which is why, when the hands grabbed him and yanked him into the shadow of a jetboots stall, he assumed the assailant was an enemy and punched them in the balls. Only their balls turned out to be their face, which was on level with his. The girl reeled back. Spat out a bloody incisor. “Fuck. There goes another one.” 

Peter lowered his shaking fist. The gun rattled in his grip. “W-who are you?” 

“What, no apology? You’re Ravager stock, alright.” She drooled blood over her grubby bare feet, then slurped up the drip and smacked her lips. “Mm. Right. Guess it didn’t go so good?” 

“What didn’t, I don’t understand…” 

The girl rolled her eyes. “Your captain’s plan, dipshit. He dead?” Peter’s liquefying chin told her all she needed to know. “Fuck. I told ‘im so. Alright. You better come with me.” 

And she stepped backwards, through the wall. Or rather, through the curtain that’d been draped across a borehole and painted with the same necrosified splotches as the surrounding tissue. A borehole that only a child could squeeze through. Peter eyed it as if it had fangs. “Where?” 

“Somewhere safe.” The girl dropped to her hands and knees and started to crawl. The flap fluttered down after her, and Peter watched through the threadbare fabric as her heels vanished into the gloom. “C’mon! And lose the coat!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Peter is the Carl of the gotg-universe, I stg**
> 
> **Please comment! No matter how small - it means a lot. :3**


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Crab and Vaas conspire, Peter crawls, and Kraglin comes up with a cunning plan.**

“Are you telling me that you decimated my men, destroyed my conference room, and _failed_ to retrieve Udonta’s head?”

Vaas yawned, scratching her nose with the tip of Yondu’s inactive arrow. “Ain’t your employee, Crab.” 

“No, just my accomplice,” Crab snapped. Wherever he was projecting from, it didn’t have ample room to pace; he stomped back and forth along a five metre line, turning in a brisk flurry of holopixels at the end of each march. “And when Udonta returns, he’ll want revenge.” 

Vaas’ smirk trained on the crust of dried blood she’d picked from her left nostril. “Oh, Udonta’s dead. Don’t you worry about that.” 

Crab didn’t let himself celebrate prematurely. “And his first mate?” At Vaas’s silence he growled and hunched his shoulders. The second prosthetic set of arms twisted in viperish fury. “Then we still have a _problem_. You know how the captain title’s passed. It’s not to the overseer of communications! If Obfonteri comes back…” 

“He won’t,” said Vaas, but she didn’t sound especially confident. Crab’s grimace grew. 

“You’d better ensure that he doesn’t! Hunt down the boy as well. And the big fellow. I assume you want to keep the nature of your ascension secret?” 

“Would be best.” Vaas rubbed the dried blood into a ball at flicked it at the cleft mirror, tucking the arrow into her belt. “Udonta mighta gone soft, but he was good at bringing home the booty. Don’t want no one kicking up a fuss – or getting the same idea about me.” 

“True, true.” Crab’s blind face swivelled uncannily in her direction. Vaas saw the glimmer of his holofeed in the reflection of his glasses, a bluish spectre of herself marooned against broken black. “How do you plan on encouraging the crew to follow you, though? You must have some ploy to avoid anarchy.” 

“Alliance with you’ll be a good start.” Vaas grinned. “And those new relays we was talking about, before we got down to business…” 

Crab held up a wizened hand. “Fetch me the skulls of Udonta, Obfonteri and Quill,” he said, “and I will give you whatever you wish.” 

*** 

Click. Click. Click-ck. Click. 

Kraglin held his breath. 

Click. Click. Cl- 

The scuttle cam’s red eye fizzled out and it uttered a high-pitched motorized scream, the hole in its thorax spluttering sparks. Another one down. But that was the third one he’d shot since they’d bunkered down here, and the consistent failure of the feeds would attract attention. It was time to move. 

“We gotta go,” he muttered to Axley. “Off Knowhere, if we can.” He’d tried Isla’s comm, and Morlug’s – even Horuz’s in a last-ditch effort – but all buzzed blank. Vaas must be sabotaging the waves. No doubt Crab had enough equipment in his layer to have her little techie heart turning cartwheels. They could make a break for the ship – but that’d be what Crab was expecting, and there was a helluva lot of open tongue to cover between here and there. Plus, after this display, Kraglin wasn’t sure how much he trusted the Galleon crew not to shank their Admiral while he was down. No – best they lay low for until Yondu was back on his feet. Or at least, y’know, responsive. 

He was breathing. Kraglin had ascertained it – with difficulty, and after several increasingly frantic attempts. They were crouched in the gulley behind an abandoned translator-implant stall, and Kraglin had one hand resting on Yondu’s chest to make sure that raspy rise and fall didn’t stop. He wasn’t sure what he’d do, if it did. 

Axley, squatting on Yondu’s other side with his bulk all the more emphasized by the tight space, scanned the street up and down. “What about Peter?” he asked. 

Kraglin shook his head. There’d been no sign of the boy, not since he’d first been pronounced missing. It was as if he’d melted away. Gone as quickly as he’d entered into their lives, after wreaking untold amounts of destruction. How one tiny kid could carry so much unlucky baggage was beyond him. “Peter’ll have to handle himself.” Yondu’d be pissed once he woke, but right now there were more immediate concerns. Kraglin crawled over Yondu’s belly, kneeling on the streetside. He reluctantly broke contact to scope the crowds. The tech centre was filling again, whisperings of _Crab_ and _Ravager_ and _mutiny_ bubbling at the edge of Kraglin’s hearing – but Crab was evidently scanning for them further afield, because here, close to the core of his nest, there were no black suits and no helmets among the nattering denizens. 

He and Axley had already dumped their coats. They’d stripped Yondu’s as well – Kraglin’d insisted on stuffing it into a crack under the cover of a looming tooth; never knew when boss’d want to return for it. Their disguises had been completed with the acquisition (by less-than-legal means) of a trio of hooded ponchos which draped formlessly around them and obscured their faces from all but the closest scrutiny. Kraglin had winced as he pulled Yondu’s over the mangled mess of his implant, and prayed that whatever coma he’d dropped into, it made him immune to pain. 

“We’re clear,” he whispered. Axley nodded, all business, and Kraglin looked away as he heaved Yondu into a fireman hold. No sense bickering – if he tried to help, he’d just slow them down. He satisfied himself with securing his pistol in the pocket of the poncho so any blasts would be muffled by the fabric and pulling up a map on his wristpiece. Where would Vaas and Crab be least likely to look? Where would Ravagers never willingly go? 

Well, there was only one answer to that. Kraglin smiled without emotion and set their course. “This way.” 

*** 

The girl motioned for silence. Bounded over the broken vent grill, heedless of the drop. They were moving above the spinal fluid refinement centre, and when Peter popped his head out the hole gopher-style he saw a vast factory floor, distillers fatter than an M-ship was long, and tanks and tanks of yellow juice that could house Olympic swimming pools. Workers sculled the scummy tops with long-handled rakes, working from boardwalks crudely nailed together overhead. The smell was bodily and pungent, like a lanced boil. Peter wrinkled his nose. And almost shrieked as the girl grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up into the dank dark crawlspace once again. “Ow! What!” 

“Shut up!” she hissed. “You want to get seen?” 

No. He most definitely did not. Peter sullenly shut his mouth. Then opened it again. “Hey, what’s your name?” 

“Don’t got one,” said the girl. “And keep your voice down.” Peered over her shoulder and saw traces of pity on Peter’s face – and was sure to kick him in the jaw under the pretence of stretching a cramp from her calf. Her foot smelt almost as gross as it looked. “Most folks call me Gajit.” 

“Thanks for saving my life, Gajit.” He said it as sincerely as was possible when inhaling a stranger’s fungal toe jam. Hadn’t mom said he ought to be polite? 

Gajit chuckled darkly, winching herself under a low-hanging pustule that halved the width of the tunnel and leaked a steady drip of pus. “Don’t go thanking me until you find out where I’m gonna stow ya.” The rasp of her elbows over age-hardened flesh never faltered and Peter, wincing, could only follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Ho hum. Short chappie. And very... _fillerish_.**
> 
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>  
> 
>  
> 
> **Still, please drop a review if you liked it! Makes my day (and gives me motivation... *hinthint*)**
> 
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> ****


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **In which Axley and Kraglin and Yondu walk into the lion’s den. Metaphorically. Well. Axley and Kraglin do. Yondu flops. You get the gist.**

“This is a bad idea,” said Axley. He’d repeated that sentiment several times over the last hour, ever since Kraglin told him the plan, and the first mate hadn’t had much patience to begin with.

“Look around you,” he snapped, slitting the empty plasma cartridge and upending it over his last clip to salvage the last scorching drops. “See any of Crab’s men?” 

“No.” A beat. “But I do see Horde, Kraglin. Lots and _lots_ of Horde.” 

Kraglin fastened the screw cap. Shook twice to ensure the slim glass cylinder wasn’t about to spring a deadly leak, and popped it in. He crossed to Axley, who was dithering on the edge of the territory the Horde had claimed, and busied himself with tugging the hood lower over Yondu’s implant. They could pass him off as Kree so long as no one checked the eyes. But people carried stranger cargos through the Ravager dock day and night; the same would be true of this end of the Celestial’s mouth, Kraglin was sure. All they had to do was act like they were supposed to be here, and they could nab a fighter ship and fly for the nearest medimoon. 

After that… After that, Kraglin wasn’t sure. He refused to contemplate that this was permanent, that his captain was gonna rot out the rest of his days as a dumb vegetable. That weren’t no way to go. Better he finish him off himself than leave him to that. But Yondu was a tough sonuvabitch, and as soon as his brainpan had registered the damage he’d be up and kicking in no time. Arrow might fly a bit wonky, but he could live with that. 

He could live with anything, so long as Yondu woke up. 

First things were first though. A ship. 

Kraglin rolled his poncho over the gunbelt, touching the knives stowed in each sleeve for reassurance. He’d heard stories about the Horde captain. None were especially pleasant. But heck – everyone exaggerated, right? Poor fella had probably just come a cropper of a nasty accident and modded himself up to compensate. The rest was all hyperbole, spin put on to strike terror into delicate hearts, yada yada. Still. Wouldn’t pay to let his guard drop, not even for a moment. 

He took point as they crossed the line, the ground noticeably changing from ossified gum to rusty iron. Horde color was blue, blue like the middling core of an ocean trench. Navy dyed leather glistened under the glare of Horde-ship headlamps, patched and stitched, cropped with rubber and crude-hewn armour. Kraglin kept his head down and prayed that their black cloaks were of a similar enough shade to avoid notice. 

They weren’t. 

“Oi! You there!” A Horde-girl. Gold-skinned, officious looking, hair scraped back in a bun. “You got something to sell, you stay in the trade zone. This here’s our territory.” 

“Sorry,” Kraglin croaked, sheepishly raising his empty hands. He kept his eyes downcast, focussing on her knotted laces. “New recruits.” 

“Huh. Who hired you?” 

Damn. Well, Kraglin only knew one Horde name – “Uh. Romago?” 

The expression on the Xandarian’s face told him he’d chosen wrong. “You’re tellin’ me my captain hired two idiots and a catatonic drunk.” 

Kraglin scratched the back of his head, the hood scratching the shaved sides of his scalp. “Something like that?” 

“I’ll just check that with him, shall I?” Crap. Kraglin balked. Gossip the rumours might be, but that didn’t mean he’d bet his life on that theory. 

“You really wanna disturb him?” he hazarded. Knew he’d spoken right when the woman’s face soured further. “Look. I didn’t get a name from the fella who okayed it. But we’re all able-bodied – including the Kree, when he ain’t been at the bottle.” He dealt Yondu’s thigh a friendly slap. “Just need to split town for a while, earn some dishonest cash. Y’know?” 

The woman looked down her long yellow nose. Kraglin held the gaze, jitteriness unfeigned, until she sighed and tapped her earpiece to cancel the call. “Y’see that orange-painted fighter, dock’s end?” Kraglin nodded. “Go there. You can dredge the septic system while your buddy wakes up. Anyone asks, tell ‘em Miss Lazgha sent you. We’ll fit you for leathers once we’re in orbit.” 

“Yes ma’am!” He even tossed in a salute. They were dismissed with a roll of ochre eyes. 

Kraglin strode along the filed-flat crest of the tooth in the direction Lazgha had identified. Then, when a glance revealed that she’d been distracted by a stuttering rookie who’d misplaced his refuelling truck, he grabbed Axley’s arm and hustled him under the engine of an unoccupied fighter. Yondu’s head smacked heavily off the big guy’s chest as Kraglin shoved him towards the ladder. “Get in.” 

Axley eyed the sealed hatch. “It’s locked.” 

“And you’re a Ravager. Work it out.” 

“Where’re you going?” 

Kraglin paused just beyond the fighter’s shadow, silhouetted against the harbour lights. “Saving our asses. You’ll see.” He didn’t stay to watch Axley wobble up the ladder. If he dared drop Yondu he’d flay him alive, and Axley knew it. Instead, Kraglin stalked along the rows of humming fighter jets until he caught the arm of an engineerish type. “Scuse me – I’m new. Lazgha said I was on anti-aircraft maintenance?” 

*** 

The tunnel was a petrified sea-sponge, or perhaps a nightmare tugged from the brain of a trypophobe. Its bile-yellow surface was perforated by a thousand concentric and interlaid holes, the shallowest up to a metre in diameter and ridged like a bumpy scab, while the deeper were measured in inches and tightly grouped, their throats weathered smooth by the slow drizzle of phlegm. 

“Where are we?” whispered Peter. He held out his arms for balance as he tiptoed around the rim of a crater. The ground was solid, albeit sticky, but it looked like it would dip and squish under his oversized boots. Peter imagined that the smallest hole could expand into a bottomless mouth, swallow him whole before knitting shut without a trace. He could only be grateful the ceiling was high enough that he didn’t have to shimmy on his belly. 

Ahead, Gajit sauntered across the slimy formation with the air of a bored tourguide. “Sinuses,” she replied. “And ya can talk normally – ain’t no one who knows about this place ‘cept the brats and those small enough to reach it.” 

Peter frowned. Hopped a particularly _hungry_ looking cluster of holes, which puckered the surface of an organic lump and flared and contracted in time with the push and pull of the warm, moist breeze. “What’re you going to do when you get too big?” 

Gajit’s laugh was half-cough. “Ya really think I’m gonna live that long?” 

“Oh.“ Peter stuttered to a halt. Winced as the holes spasmed, bubbles of mucus bursting with wet pops. “I – I’m sorry?” 

“Yeah, yeah. Whole damn Nova Empire is very sorry, I’m sure. But I don’t see them doin’ nothing about it.” She peered behind her, sallow face half-hidden behind the jut of a too-prominent shoulder bone. “They might help you, though. Nice-looking healthy kid. Still got all your teeth.” 

Peter bit his lip, remembering a fist and a bloody browned and diseased molar being spat to clatter on the steel slabs of the tech market. “Sorry for that too.” 

“No worries. Sucking makes the food last longer, anyways. Speaking of…” Gajit trotted over, and hunkered besides the spitting collection of holes. Some were pinprick sized, others wide as a coffee mug, bunching and opening over the surface of the mound like time-lapsed spots on a fly agaric. “You hungry?” 

Peter blanched. “No.” 

“Wuss.” Gajit waited until the nearest puncture was at its widest, then shoved in a fist and extracted it before the wizened yellow lips could clamp. It came out dripping; she licked the viscous slime off her fingers as if it was honey. “Mm-mm. Ya don’t know what you’re missing out on.” 

Swallowing hard, Peter sidestepped around her and started for the cavern’s narrow egress. “I don’t think I wanna find out.” 

Gajit’s laughter followed him. “You get hungry enough, you’d eat worse.” 

Their voices bounced oddly off the porous walls, acoustics at once dampened and echoing as if Knowhere’s tissues were absorbing certain notes and rejecting others, and Gajit’s words seemed to reverberate up from the holes beneath Peter’s boots. Peter gulped and gauged the distance between him and the exit. “Am I worse?” he asked timidly. That only made Gajit cackle harder; Peter stopped his slow creep escapewards and crossed his arms. “It’s not funny! Look, when you hang out with Ravagers…” 

Gajit wiped away a tear. It might have been feigned, or just a symptom of the infected cuts creasing corners of her eyes like premature crow’s feet. “Yeah, might wanna keep that whole _raised by the Ravagers_ thing on the down-low. At least, when you’re busy playing cutesy with the Nova Corps.” She stood in a crackle of filthy rags and strutted past Peter, taking point once again, and beckoned for him to keep up. “Don’t want them to think you’re pulling a heist. If you think Ravagers or guardsmen are dangerous, you oughta try stealing from a government official. Those fellas are _ruthless_.” 

“To bad guys,” Peter amended, as she dropped to gauge the width of the next tunnel. “Only to bad guys, right?” 

Gajit retracted from the crawlspace long enough to raise her eyebrows. “You think there’s any _good guys_ on Knowhere, even Nova Corps? Think again. They ain’t here for duty so much as pleasure, if ya get my drift.” 

“Then – then how’m I supposed to escape?” 

“Simple.” Gajit shunted her narrow shoulders through the ridged opening, wriggling through to the cavern beyond. “Ya keep smart and small and quiet, and you only get seen when you wanna be seen. Like me. Now hurry up before the passage shuts. There’s all sortsa controls in place to stop Knowhere sneezing, but the brain’s sensed us and this baby’s gonna clench.” 

Blood drained from Peter’s face. He spared a final fearful glance at the room of holes, all of which appeared to be shrinking. As soon as Gajit’s dirty soles had cleared the gap he was through, close enough to feel the fleshy stone crimp at his waist. 

“That was fun,” he said weakly, examining the snotty gunge clogging his fingers like amphibian-webs. He valiantly battened down nausea when Gajit assessed her own handful, hummed, and happily began to lick. 

*** 

Kraglin meekly introduced himself to the chief engineer, claimed a long and illustrious history in several obscure mechanical fields which were named off the top of his head, and joined him in pouring over a manual detailing the interior design of the anti-aircraft system: five massive canons hacked into the plaque along the canine’s serrated peak which were in convenient need of renovation. Even a genius’d have a time of memorizing that whole schematic, much less puzzling it out. Kraglin laid claims to no such title. But he’d learnt all he needed to know from the diagram of the cables that snaked out from each cannon’s base. The blasts were supplied by battery, individual to each massive machine. But the _targeting_ … 

“So,” said the girl who’d been assigned to partner him, as they dismantled the power core on the nearest cannon and pieced it around the new battery – Kraglin insisting she show him how it was done, under the pretence of being out of practice. Her smile hovered between flirtatious and suspicious. “Where was it you said you studied again?” 

“Hraxian Institute,” lied Kraglin easily. “Expelled from the class of ‘91AlphaZ-5, for smoking Huffer under the principal’s window.” He gave her a conspiratorial nudge. “And hardwiring a door to chop my least favourite professor in half, but the Huffer was the official reason.” 

Her eyes went a little starry, even as her clever fingers twizzled and spliced the wires into a sparse copper cradle. “You overrode the no-harm algorithms in Nova technology? You chopped someone in _half_ with a _door_?” 

Kraglin kept his shrug modest. “They never proved nothing. We done here?” 

She slotted a last relay into place, patting it twice. The blue plasma in the battery coil jittered as the current seared its surface, then steadily began to glow. The rumble as the cannon swung to ready was louder than the gastric emissions of a bilgesnipe. 

“We are now.” 

“Cool,” said Kraglin. Even meant it a little. He’d have to see what Yondu thought about investing in a coupla these babies, once he’d woken up – although of course, theirs would be more impervious to sabotage. And with a colour scheme closer to the red. 

He waited for the girl to start her broad-hipped sashay for the next cannon in line. Then yanked out a handful of wires, protected from the zap and snap of high voltage by the glove he’d stolen from the Crab’s men. Overhead, the cannon’s burgeoning thunder stumbled, sputtered, and ebbed. Its long barrel clanked about its pivot with a mournful whir, and the glare of the concentrated plasma dimmed from azure to cobalt. “Shit! Think it’s blown a fuse. You go on to the next ‘un – I’ll sort this baby.” 

She dithered. “Are you sure?” 

“As my name’s Bartrax Smiddleborg.” 

“Alright. I’ll catch you later, Bartrax.” 

Kraglin saw her on her way with a wink. Then fell on the panels around the gun’s foot, peeling them aside to access the cable beneath. He made short work of it, sliding the knife from his sleeve and hacking open the five-ply braid of plastic cords, deeming the job complete when the blade nicked iron beneath. A low crackle of white noise, one he wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, was suddenly unmistakable in its loss. 

Kraglin hastily returned the panels to their proper place and stood, joining the rest of the Horde in the immediate vicinity who were cocking their heads and frowning, trying to place the source of the audible shift. Once they’d shrugged and returned to their stations, he morphed his expression into one of exquisite panic and sprinted over to the central control hub, the core of the cables’ vast spiderweb, and tugged on the chief engineer’s arm. “Sir? Sir – I think we have a problem. Someone’s busted the targeting system on canon 4 – fuse blew after we’d gotten the battery situated, so I thought I’d better check it out.” The engineer’s initial violent response to his dragging was stifled by fear. 

“What happened? Captain wants these ready for a test volley by the end of the hour!” 

“Don’t know if it were an accident and they were trying to cover it up or if they did it on purpose, but it’s totally mangled. I ain’t got a clue where to start – whole segment needs replacing. Could ya go take a look?” 

The engineer’s face had taken on a greenish hue, made all the more interesting by the natural purple tint of his skin. “Stay here,” he hissed, detaching Kraglin’s grip and shoving him into his previous post. “Look busy, and don’t mention a word of this – not to anyone! You remember what the captain did to the last chief?” 

He wasn’t ‘playing with fire’ so much as ‘traipsing merrily into the heart of a furnace’, and Kraglin’s shiver wasn’t feigned. A morbid part of him wanted to ask, but the rational half told him he didn’t want to know. Couldn’t go harbouring no guilt for what he was about to do, after all. The engineer took his grimace as an affirmation, treating him to a pinch-lipped nod before jogging through the weaving columns of Hordesmen packing and unpacking their latest haul, his violet head shiny with sweat. Kraglin returned it. Then wriggled his fingers, and laid them to rest across the array of buttons, dials and toggle-like analog sticks that ornamented the top of the console. 

“Sucker,” he muttered. Flipped his wristpiece open and found that Axley’s line was static-free. “Hey idiot? You best be ready to fly.” It was time to do what Ravagers did best – cause some chaos. 

*** 

The Ravager frigates were hulking red trapezoids, cut from the gossamer curtains of the nebula behind. They’d been ordered to their new positions by the galleon’s chief comms officer – something about being on the lookout for a rumoured Chitauri swarm, captain’s orders – and were now arranged with two to the fore of Knowhere’s skull and one to the aft, situated at the points of an equilateral triangle. The churn of their engines would’ve disguised the buzz as the new systems came online had they been in atmosphere; as it was, everything was soundless and weightless, and no one noticed the crude black boxes that’d been velcroed to each ship’s belly at a calculated centre-point. 

Sensors thinner than cat whiskers set up a steady vibration, and the frigates’ pitted undersides caught the bouncing signal like multi-faceted satellite dishes. Beneath the Crab’s layer, buried under miles of carved tooth and mined gum, Vaas’ triangulation software flared to life. She smirked at the results, face lit from below by the ghastly red gleam. 

“Got ‘em,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Edited very quickly. Please point out mistakes!**
> 
> ****Also, if you haven't read The One With The Hostile Takeover, you won't know that Romago's very, very nasty. That's probably for the best.****
> 
> **Also, comments give me much-needed writing motivation... hint-hint.**
> 
> ****


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Peter finds a junk droid, Vaas finds Peter, and Yondu wakes up.**

By the time Gajit pushed aside another skin-coloured cloth and reintroduced Peter to the world, blinking and sticky as a newborn, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to stand. The final stretch of crawlways had been claustrophobic, an elongated coffin of fossilized tissue. He’d wriggled along caterpillar-style, elbows squeezed so tight to his sides that he’d been in danger of puncturing a lung, unable to rear his face more than inch away from Gajit’s warty toes. Their emergence was a relief in more ways than one. 

“Phew,” Peter gasped, leaning on Gajit’s shoulder as he staggered into the light. “Fresh air.” 

“Yeah,” Gajit agreed, inhaling hungrily. “Putrefaction.” 

“What? I – oh.” 

They were standing in a shallow valley. At least, Peter assumed it was shallow – it was hard to tell, given that it was stuffed to the brim with garbage. “Ugh! What is this place? Is that – is that a _body_?” 

“Dumping ground,” said Gajit with indomitable cheer. She prodded Peter to stand without assistance and span around with her arms outstretched, encompassing the whole decrepit heap. There were soggy hillocks of discarded clothes, mountains of mulching out-of-date protein blocks. Rotten fruit cores. Seeping strings of fluid that Peter neither had the knowledge to nor wanted to identify. Burnt out relics of engine cores twisted into helter-skelters high above, and flies sawed in noisy tornadoes, fat bluebottles with bodies as large as Peter’s clenched fist. “Everything winds up here at some point. Old food, old tech kibble, old friends…” 

“The back of Knowhere’s sofa?” 

“You could say that. C’mon.” 

“Where are we going?” Peter asked, as Gajit started to swarm the nearest mushy pile. It was a dune of rusted metal and decomposing organic bits, and the whole thing shifted and slipped under Gajit’s squirming toes, dragging her one step back for every two she took. “And why doesn’t it smell?” 

Because it _did_. But nowhere near as awful as it should, and Peter worried for a moment that cohabiting with Ravagers might have caused permanent damage to his nose. 

“Most droids are assigned to one station,” Gajit puffed. Dug in her fingers and heaved herself atop a solid hunk of old race pod, buried securely enough in the dune’s flanks not to slide. “So if we grab a garbage drone that’s dumping posh-looking trash, it’ll fly us straight to the Nova Corps. And it don’t stink because it’s doused in solvents every hour. Trust me – we don’t wanna be there when that happens.” 

Peter eyed up the rotten shale. Set a tentative boot onto what might once have been some sort of orange – it squelched obscenely, innards pulping out either side – and tried to decipher whether this was gross or kinda awesome. He settled for a bit of both. “Why not?” he asked. Dug the boot in – the fruit gave up its last congealed spurts, along with a few overzealous maggots – and started to climb. He made it five steps before his feet squished into something larger. He wriggled to extract it. Then, when that didn’t work, glanced down – and choked on a scream, flailing so hard he tumbled all the way down again. He dragged the alien’s too-soft torso with him, along with half the pile, and Gajit snickered nastily, surfing the buffets from atop her vantage. 

“Where d’you think the bodies come from?” 

*** 

Vaas hummed to herself as she slung the belt around her hips, holsters smacking her thighs. A few words slipped out, and one of Crab’s guards – nursing his broken nose, courtesy of Kraglin – scrunched its buckled remnants in confusion. “Whassa _peena co-larder_?” 

Vaas span her pistols around her fingers by the trigger guard. She slotted them neatly home. “Fuck if I know, but it’s catchy. Now Crab – how many guys d’you think I oughta take? That kid’s damn quick. Plus, Axley’s a big fella, and y’know Kraggles can be… _slippery_.” 

“He’s certainly proved that much,” Crab grumbled. 

Meanwhile, the guard was peering at the feeds behind her. “Uh, Vaas? Ma’am?” 

“What? And it’s ‘captain’.” 

“It will be,” Crab corrected, “once I have Udonta’s head.” Vaas was about to respond – something suitably sneery, because _experienced_ Crab might be but like hell was she gonna roll and show her belly; she’d be captain with or without his backing. Luckily for her, the broken-nosed guard took that moment to squeak his gloved finger off the vidscreen. 

“Well, captain-ma’am; didya said somethin’ bout a kid…?” 

A scuttle cam’s red-tinted reel showed a panoramic of the dumpsite. A dumpsite through which a junk-droid was ricocheting, careering into the pit’s steep embankments and bashing headlong into piles of decomposing waste. It was a squat thing, shaped like a toadstool: a cheap conical engine riveted to a bulging grey semisphere, four arms attached under the canopy. Each was tipped with a clawlike litter-pick, and those litter-picks were currently groping at the two small children who were clinging to its back by their fingertips. The nearest child, around whose neck hung a very familiar pair of spongey orange headphones, was almost flung off when the junk droid made a violent turn and scraped along a rusty old race pod fast enough to draw sparks. His mouth opened in a soundless ‘o’. 

“Volume,” said Vaas. 

“- _aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaieee_ -“ 

“Nearly got it, nearly got it!” The second kid, an urchin of classic Knowhere stock whose matted black hair was a potential nest to lice, cockroaches, and multiple genera of rats, had wrested a panel off the droid’s smooth flank. “Here!” She wrenched out two handfuls of wires, corresponding to the creatures’ forelegs. They relaxed their pincering of Peter’s ankle and drooped in wilted defeat. The girl crowed, using the wires as reins to spin the droid in a victory-lap. Besides her, Peter’s shrieks became gleeful laughter. He stood – tentatively at first, but with growing confidence – and rode the droid like a surfboard, while his new friend straddled the shell and drove. 

“Yee-hah!” he yelled. The zoom on the camera was clear enough that even through the swirling white fug of compost-steam, Vaas could read the elation on his face. 

“C’mon ugly,” the girl shouted, wrapping the makeshift reins around her fists. The droid bucked, one last time, as if in defiance. Then shuddered, and hovered still. “Don’t mind us; go get on with your job…” 

The droid’s shell span on its axis, gyroscopic and greased-smooth. The alarm bulb flashing out from under the translucent case waned, and Vaas blinked at the shift in light: intermittent crimson to steady white. “Here we go,” came the streetrat’s whisper. There was a grating hum. Then the droid was off, zipping through the mouldering mountains with its cargo dragging on its reins every time it edged wallwards. 

“How has he gotten that far?” Crab growled, smacking his guard on the paldron. As he was a hologram, it didn’t have much effect. “You! Take Vaas and your team and track this Terran pest down!” 

Vaas realized she was smiling, and put a stop to it. “Nah. Kraglin and Axley are in the Horde bay – I’m gonna go after the big fish. We shouldn’t need more than a dozen men to snatch the Terran; even your guys ain’t so incompetent they could be outsmarted by a twelve-year-old. Rest had better come with me.” 

Crab ignored the amendment of his order, although the slant to his brows suggested he wasn’t too happy about it. “And what makes you think the Terran isn’t flying to join them?” 

“This.” Vaas budged the guard on monitoring duty to one side, ignored her protests, and set to rewinding the scutte-cam feed with a circle of her thumb over the mirrored black interface. She froze it on a frame that captured the droid in mid-spin, the boys’ legs flung outwards like rotary blades, and enhanced until the red-tinted numberplate was visible. “Look. Bay-99, that’s a nostril designation. And y’know who sets up camp in Knowhere’s nostrils…” 

Crab’s mouth closed tight enough to smooth out the wrinkles. “He’s going to the Nova Corps.” 

*** 

How had this happened? 

Seriously. One moment you were sucking off your captain: kinda getting into it, hips jerking under your palms and blue fingers knotting in your hair. The next your captain had a hole in his head and you were on the run from a terrifying sneery Hraxian, with another Hraxian – equally terrifying and even _more_ sneery, who also happened to be that captain’s _regular_ sucker offer – dragging you into a Horde docking compound and claiming that this was the only way you all stayed alive. 

_Really_ , Axley thought, squeezing himself into the pilot’s seat and, after a moment’s deliberation, fastening the seatbelt. _I shoulda deserted when I had the chance_. He almost meant it too. 

He’d propped Yondu in the co-pilot chair – it didn’t seem right to let him roll about the floor like loose salvage. The Centaurian’s head lolled forwards and he slumped as far as was possible over the straps pinning him upright. But his chest didn’t cease in its slow rise and fall. Apparently, not everyone had to have their M-ships custom-scaled so they could buckle up and breathe at the same time. Axley took the chance to look his captain over, battening any squeamishness far down. He couldn’t _see_ any blood. Just a load of that weird granular fluid from his broken implant, dribbling over Yondu’s forehead like semi-molten lava. But the furrow seared into the top of his head bit deep. Axley didn’t know how low the implant went, but those had to be some fairly vital brain-bits it was replacing – right? Surely Kraglin knew that. He had to. You didn’t fuck your way to the top without learning _some_ of the boss’s more intimate details. He had to realize how little hope there was. 

But if Kraglin was determined to cart Yondu round like a lifesize novelty toy, it weren’t Axley’s place to argue. He’d just have to jump ship before Kragin tried to put him on nappy-duty. 

Axley sighed and gingerly gripped the joysticks. One for flaps and one for thrust – just like an M-ship. He could do this. If only they weren’t so _spindly_ … 

In the chair besides him, Yondu yawned and opened his eyes. Then realized he was fastened to a stiff-backed chair, in a place he didn’t know, potential enemies on all sides (one not a metre away, mumbling cusses to itself as it blundered through an unfamiliar ignition sequence) and whistled. 

Nothing happened. 

“…Captain?” 

Yondu whistled again, straining against the belts as Axley slowly turned. Then he _hissed_ , fierce and feral, and made an admirable effort at clawing out his lower left eyeball. 

“Woah! Hey – captain! Yondu, it’s me; it’s Axley –“ Did he want to say ‘I gave you a blowjob four nights ago’? He didn’t want to say ‘I gave you a blowjob four nights ago’. “You’re okay,” he finished lamely. There was a long pause. Yondu’s lips relaxed from their purse, the piercing staccato notes breaking into silence. He nodded, pupils still pinpricks, and gradually settled back onto his seat, poncho ruckled and creased from where the seatbelt had dug in. Axley eyed the way he was breathing; still a bit fast and high. “Want me to, uh?” He gestured at the straps. And, receiving an affirmative grunt, reached over and banged the knob at the centre of the link, sending them zipping back to their crannies. “There. Okay, so some shit’s gone down. Uh… Where to start…“ 

His fumbling explanation jarred off in a squeak as Yondu surged upright, leapfrogged the chairs, and dragged Axley flush against the headrest with a forearm over his throat. 

“Who the fuck’re you?” he growled into his ear. “And how d’you know my name?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Me: I’m going to avoid _these_ tired old fanfic clichés**
> 
>  
> 
> **Also me: but as for _this_ tired old fanfic cliché…**
> 
>  
> 
> **Ssh. I like amnesia-fic. Although, there will be… a bit of a twist. You’ll see. ;)**
> 
> **Please leave comments!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Peter goes solo and Kraglin’s in trouble (as usual).**

The junk droid wheeled to a halt above a discarded takeaway box. Peter figured that even on the other side of the galaxy, some things never changed.

Gajit tugged on the reins to keep their robot from moving once it had transferred the rubbish to the sack it held clutched in one of its remaining responsive pincers, which dragged out horizontal when they flew like a parachute on a drag racer. Her smile was fading, giddy delight replaced with solemn gravity. “This is where you get off, Petey.” 

“Huh?” Peter looked around, bewildered. “Here?” 

‘Here’ was definitely not a Nova harbour. Here was a slender artery, too thin for the larger pilot-bearing junkships to bludgeon down. Every crack in the atrophied tissue was crusty with grime; every nook held a glass-eyed squatter. Some munched slowly on dried huffer-root, others watched the violet smoke curl from the mouths of their pipes, and others still tucked into the walls and bundled rags around their feet to stave off the surface corridors’ lingering chill. There were bare-breasted bipedal women wearing glossy red heels – Peter ineffectually tried to convince himself not to peep – who swayed monstrously tall, their shadows writhing eldritch-like under the flickering neon lights. Creatures of all anatomical description staggered from a dingy bar entrance ahead, and the splatter of their vomit was audible even over the bellow of drunken shanty songs. 

Peter swallowed. “Uh, I’m not sure,” he began. 

Gajit released her reins to give Peter’s back a friendly thump. “Can’t take ya right up to the ships, can I? Not if you’re gonna sneak aboard. Defeat the object.” 

“…Right.” Not that he was _nervous_ , about fending for himself. Just that… Well, what with Kraglin and Yondu dead and the Ravagers turned enemy, _alone_ was a pretty big feeling right now. He dithered on the precipice of the junk droid’s shell. The ground below was knobbled and gnarly, slimy with the dregs of alien booze, and that two metre drop might as well have been lightyears. 

“Geddon with it before I push ya,” Gajit grumbled. The hand on his back became warning, and Peter swallowed and let himself slither over the edge. His boots slammed down, legs buckling – but he caught himself on hands and knees rather than knees and chin, which was a small victory. Overhead Gajit whistled toothlessly to herself as she veered the old junk droid around. Clearly, she intended on whizzing away and leaving him to his fate without so much as a by-your-leave; Peter supposed that was the way it went in the big wide universe, for Ravagers and streetkids alike – getting attached or getting sentimental were synonymous with getting dead. But heck. Gajit had been good to him. Even if she was marooning him in this sinkhole, Peter figured he owed her something. 

“Wait! Can I… can I give you money, or anything?” Because he did have some; just a little. Yondu maintained that Peter was too small to be paid proper (which was all kinds of stupid because Peter didn’t eat as much as a big person, so really, shouldn’t Yondu pay him _more?_ ) But he’d still barter over a pittance of a salary, given in exchange for bogs well-scrubbed. When Peter caught him in a rare good mood he could walk away with full pockets. 

Pockets which were assuredly not full now. Peter turned them inside out in growing horror. “Uh…” 

“Oh yeah,” said Gajit breezily, reclining on the junk droid’s back and kicking filthy feet at the ceiling. “I picked ya for everything I had before we hit the tunnels. Been nice meeting you, Petey. Hup, boy!” And with a wave and a putter from the straining engine, she was gone. 

Peter gawped after her. He was streaked in Knowhere-snot and garbage-grease, sweat and grime and the dried salty remnants of tears. He was exhausted, body and brain, and more than a little afraid. Peter was alive though. That was something. And he’d never have made it without Gajit. “Thank you!” he called to the empty tunnel, meaning the words to the depths of his empty pockets. Then he turned and began the uphill push through the floundering drunks, eyes on the eerie blue gleam of docklights ahead. 

*** 

Kraglin swung through the fighter’s access hatch, talking as he went. “You’d best be ready to gun ‘em, Ax; won’t take the engies long to realize, and with those big brains of theirs they’ll probably put the cannons to rights in moments. We gotta… go… now…” His voice trailed off, as his vision focussed on the gun barrel squashing his nose. “Um.” 

“How’s about you shut up and get on the floor,” growled Yondu. 

*** 

Peter entered the docking bay at a jog, not least because a couple of the less stable drunks had tried to grab him as he went past. 

“S’it Xandarian?” one said. 

“Looks _tasty_ ,” said another, and Peter had had to kick him in the knee to get him to stop squeezing his bicep like he was pinching for edible fat. He remembered how eager he’d been to sample a portion of adulthood when Vaas brought him his first drink – now, the sour boozy stink on their breath made him shudder. 

She’d tricked him. Of course she had. Taken advantage of the stupid little Terran… 

Peter slowed to a trot, then a leisurely stroll. Focussed on his breathing until he was counting to four for every inhale and five for every ex. Set his jaw, smiled at anyone who looked at him, and walked like he was meant to be there. He couldn’t afford to be a stupid little Terran. Not now. 

There’d be no Yondu coming to his rescue anymore. Nobody knew him out here, and even less folks cared – Gajit had gotten him as far as she could, but Peter had to do this last part himself. And so he kept smiling and he kept walking, meandering back and forth between the little dockside kiosks that sprung up wherever a crew settled, dawdling around a stall of what smelt like hotdogs but looked like toffee apples and feeling more miffed than he’d pretended that Gajit had swanned off with all his cash. Hopefully he’d be able to stow away in a Nova ship pantry. Only it didn’t look like many of the star-shaped crafts sprinkling this corner of Knowhere’s nostril membrane would fit a kitchen cupboard, let alone anything more substantial. 

Peter scrunched his face, mulling this latest dilemma. He’d have to get inside the actual cockpit – these miniature fighters weren’t like the M-ships, which varied from solo vessels to crafts with ample space for a crew of five, if by ‘ample’ you meant elbows in each other’s faces and arguing over who used the bathroom longest. All were much of a likeness, shaped like the jacks Peter used to play knucklebones with in the school playground, with one seat and one control column and not much else besides. The only variable factor was the amount of golden paint scuffed off their wings. Evidently, there was a larger ship designed for deepspace travel hovering around Knowhere’s aerial-puckered cranium. But if he planned on getting there, it would only be in one of these miniature speeders, in full view of its pilot. 

Not for the first time, Peter mentally berated Yondu for not letting him drive his M-ship when he had the chance. That was a _much_ more useful Ravager-skill than toilet cleaning, anyway. If Yondu’s ghost was still hovering around somewhere – which Peter wouldn’t put past the stubborn git – he hoped he was realizing the error of his ways. But standing in mute half-conversation with a dead man was half as crazy as hearing the dead man talk back, so Peter stopped his mind before it could wander any further and focussed on the task ahead. 

Hijack a Nova ship. Easy, right? 

*** 

“What d’you mean, _you’re hijacking the ship?_ Ya can’t hijack the ship we’re rescuing you with!” 

His outburst earnt him a rap of the pistol between the eyes – _ow_ – and a close-up of Yondu’s snarl. And – well shit. He hadn’t noticed that there was a difference between when the death threats were mock and when they were real, but right now his bladder was informing him that the change was significant. 

“I told ya to get on the ground. Last. Chance.” 

He meant it. Kraglin stared at him a second longer, trying to penetrate the cold red of Yondu’s glare and find something familiar beneath – but only for a second. He nodded, and dropped to his knees. “Pistols out,” said Yondu, gesturing with the gun. Kraglin obeyed. His hands shook as they undid the strap and deposited his whole arms belt by Yondu’s feet – with its lone occupant and his last clip of plasma-juice inside. Because yeah, Yondu made him roll his eyes and occasionally wager with himself whether he was going to see the end of the day with as many limbs as he’d had when he’d started it. But being _afraid of Yondu himself_ , as opposed to just his stupider plans, was something else entirely. 

Yondu kept the guns steady on him and Axley as he kicked the belt out of reach. His expression was shut off, hostile to a fault, projecting nothing but suspicion and anger. Which probably meant he was freaking out too, what with having woken up without any recollections of the past few years, if his lack of recognition was anything to go by. Kraglin tried to imagine what that must be like. Strange place, strange people… Heck, the only thing he’d be likely to recognize would be the Horde ship’s interior. 

Which didn’t bode well for them. 

Kraglin’s throat dried as Yondu stepped over his legs, shooting Axley a look when he readjusted in his seat that had him shrinking behind it. “We ain’t Horde,” he whispered. Yondu stopped when they were both in his sights, the pistol grinding on the back of Kraglin’s skull. Kraglin raised his empty palms and struggled to dampen their quiver. There was a knife in his sleeve – a dozen more stowed under the poncho, in danger of rattling if he didn’t get himself under control. It was probably best if Yondu didn’t know about them. “We’re Ravagers, captain. Your men.” 

Yondu confirmed his suspicions as to how much time he’d lost. His confused grunt was repaired to a growl. “I ain’t _captain_ ; don’t you go sweet-talkin’ –“ 

“You ain’t captain _yet_. Look, ya took a headshot – damn nasty one too. Why don’t you have a feel, and –“ 

“I can _feel_ ,” spat Yondu, “that some fucker’s done broke my link with my arrow. And I’m thinkin’ right now, that fucker’s most likely you.” 

Aw shit. Kraglin shut his eyes. Tried to focus on something else besides the icy circle of steel stamping into his cranium. “It might just be outta range,” he said, tongue scraping on the arid roof of his mouth. “Didn’t hang round to grab it while I was dragging you out.” 

“He’s telling the truth,” added Axley, rather pointlessly. Then flinched hard enough to smack his forehead on the overhead ejector seat pulley as Yondu fired a warning shot into the chairback. Kraglin’s hands jumped towards his ears of their own accord, but resumed their proper place at a prod from the other gun. Horde weapons – must’ve been lying around somewhere. But fine-tuned while they might be, they weren’t silent, and if this kept up much longer someone was gonna _notice_ … 

“Please,” Kraglin said, as smoke drifted from the singed cushion in a languid spiral and Axley’s eyes set up a terrified quadruple twitch. The rim of the cockpit doorway was digging into his knees. "Please, we have to get out of here. Even if you _hijack_ us, or whatever – we gotta go. And soon. Otherwise we’ll all be dead.” 

“Nah,” said Yondu. “Just you.” And he pulled the pistol back a little ways, readying to fire. 

Kraglin forgot how to breathe. 

He didn’t, however, forget how to fight. He threw himself sideways and rolled as hard as he could, smacking Yondu’s shins and sending the plasma blast smashing into the blinking polka dots of switches and lights crowding the spacecraft’s cabin ceiling. Hopefully none of them were too vital for their hasty getaway. 

“Boss! Yondu! Ya _really_ don’t wanna do this –“ 

Yondu snarled, knocked off balance, but kneed him in the jaw before he went down. Kraglin reeled away, teeth chomping tongue. He sprayed blood in his face when Yondu crunched up and aimed to shoot him between his spread knees. 

“Guys –“ Axley started, then had to duck another wild blast. “Okay. I’ll shut up.” 

“No, you’ll _help me_ –“ Kraglin’s voice cut out as Yondu pushed fluidly to his feet and stomped on his stomach before he could twist away, grabbing the doorframe for leverage. The partition sliced his kidneys. “Ah!” Or something to that effect. It was rather more breathless, and threatened to be followed by his lunch. Yondu grimly ground his heel down. Kraglin squirmed and writhed like a slug under a salt-shaker, and Yondu’s pistols tracked the thrash of his head the whole way. 

“Ain’t nobody helping you,” he said. The liquefied crystal leaking from his forehead mingled with Kraglin’s mouthful of blood, a slick and fluid gel that striped Yondu’s blue cheeks like warpaint. His eyes were utterly devoid of mercy, and the lack of recognition there hurt almost as much as the plasma bolt would. 

Well. Kraglin couldn’t say that conclusively – he’d never been shot in the head, and Yondu wasn’t sharing stories. 

He forced his eyes open. If Yondu was gonna kill him, Kraglin was gonna make damn sure that he glared at him the whole time. Hopefully burnt an image of himself into the jackass’s retinas so that when his brainpan came swinging back to the present he’d feel an ounce of guilt. 

This meant he got to watch in perfect clarity, as Yondu’s aim wavered. His face crumpled to confusion and pain for a split second – he almost brought up the pistol-bearing hand to touch his temple – and then reformed around shock and wonder. The guns dropped. Literally. One right on Kraglin’s face – but that blow was nothing compared to the blaze of a plasma bolt, and Kraglin relished the throb of the new bruise. 

Not dead yet. 

But… why? 

Yondu removed his foot from his belly, staring at the boot like he’d never seen it before. Then curiously blinked at his own hands – big and broad but lacking those gnarly gun callouses that made Kraglin’s palms so rough to the touch – and twisted to examine the seam of the poncho that ran up to his neck. 

“Uh,” said Kraglin, sitting up. He held his guts, just in case they were gonna come sliding out. “Captain? You okay?” 

Yondu’s head tilted towards him, and even before the questioning clicks began Kraglin knew he hadn’t understood a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Wuh woah.**
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> **Please comment! I'm in desperate need of writing motivation.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Vaas is back and badder than ever.**

It was at that moment that a furore began in the assembled Hordesman that made the generous distribution of hair on Kraglin’s nape bristle. “Ravagers!”

“Shit!” Kraglin scrambled to his feet, grabbing both pistols and tossing one to Axley on the way. “She flight-ready, Ax?” 

Yondu, meanwhile, was goggling at the curve of metal that swooped overhead and dived down towards the cabin’s nose. Kraglin only prayed he hadn’t blown more fuses in that misfiring brain of his. He wasn’t sure he had many left to spare. 

“Yeah,” Axley said, flipping switches. “Uh, he ain’t gonna attack us again, is he?” Kraglin watched Yondu step over to the wall, walking on legs unaccustomed to the crease and drag of leather, and poke it before jumping back. Axley followed the gaze. “Okay, I’m confused.” 

“You an’ me an’ him together. Look, he ain’t trying to shoot us no more, so let’s just get outta here and worry about what to do with him later…” 

Yeah, it was possibly still rankling that Yondu was capable of shooting him to begin with. Kraglin shook his head at himself. Stupid _sentiment_. 

Then happened to glance through the bulb of glass encasing the pilot and co-pilot’s side-by-side chairs, and swore loud enough to have Yondu jumping. “Ax! Geddown!” Because there, surrounded by a silent and menacing crowd of blue-coated Hordesmen, which parted ahead and swamped closed behind, was Vaas. And she was stalking straight towards them. Or rather, towards the woman with the tight-pulled bun, strutting at that moment in front of their ship. 

Lazgha pushed her half-moon glasses up her nose. The circles flashed blinding white, hopefully distracting Vaas from the commotion onboard as Axley attempted to funnel his bulk through the gap between headrest and roof in the ship behind. “You walk into our port, Ravager? I sure hope you ain’t expecting to walk out again.” 

Kraglin helped Axley heave his legs up and over the chair back, pushing him into a crouch behind it. Then turned to apprehend Yondu, who stared at him with the guarded air of one who was used to people of a bluer hue, but didn’t resist when Kraglin tugged him over, guided him to sit, and put a finger on his lips, staring earnestly as if to sink the message in with force of gaze alone. Yondu mimicked the gesture with a smile and tooted a jangly whistle at him. Apparently, some gestures didn’t translate. 

Kraglin sighed. Still, so long as he didn’t start hollering or nothing, he supposed this was okay. Odd, but… okay. If Yondu’s previous amnesia was anything to go on, he’d regressed again – presumably to a time period when he was still ambling round forests in a loincloth and communing with nature or whatever other mystic shit he’d gotten up to in his youth. Kraglin didn’t know many of the details – very few of them, in fact; boss was a cagey bastard when he wanted to be, and Kraglin’s self-conscious reminiscences of life on Hrax tended to be met with grunts and a stiff blue back. But evidently, life on Centauri-IV hadn’t been exposed to enough of the galaxy’s brutality for a kid (Yondu couldn’t be in the mindset of anything but, what with the lack of violent tendencies) to soak up the usual hostile response to strangers not-of-their-own. For now, Kraglin planned on enjoying the peace long for as long as it took to get them out of there, and to deal with the fallout of _fuck, this is weird_ later. 

So he patted Yondu awkwardly on the shoulder, and made to peek between the seats to gauge the tension of the conversation outside. Then Yondu whistled again, louder. Frowned, and with a sharp wince, reached for the top of his head… 

Kraglin grabbed his wrist. 

“Uh, hey! Why don’t we _not_ touch the melty implant? Huh, buddy?” Startled by the sudden motion, Yondu yanked back. His open mouth registered awe when he managed to pull Kraglin over. Kraglin unstuck his face from his captain’s shoulderpad and rubbed the bruise where the pistol had previously struck, which was going to be doing a delightful impression of an aubergine tomorrow. “Great,” he muttered. “Just great.” 

But then Vaas was talking, and Kraglin was too busy straining his ears to be mad. “Now, that ain’t nice – Lazgha, is it?” 

“Miss,” said Lazgha stiffly. Vaas laughed. 

“Alrighty, lil’ miss. Now, where’s your boss? I got me a present…” 

Kraglin didn’t need visuals to see Lazgha’s sceptical raise of a brow. “A present. For Captain Romago. From a Ravager.” 

“Oh, I reckon he’ll trot right over when ya tell him what it is…” Kraglin heard Axley’s sharp inhale, and dragged him lower behind the cover of the chairs – before crawling over him, elbows dug into the big guy’s shoulderblades, and daring another peek. From that angle, he could see what Vaas was holding, and his hands itched for the pistol. 

Yondu’s arrow. 

From the pause, Lazgha recognized it. “How’d you get this?” she asked, carefully. Vaas twizzled the slender shaft across her knuckles, under and over her fingers like an unwieldy casino chip. 

“How d’you think?” 

Lazgha propped her hands on her waist. “You expect me to believe Udonta’s dead? And at _your_ hand?” 

“Nah,” said Vaas easily. “I expect you t’believe he’s either dead or dyin, and he’s stashed somewhere in your dockyard. And if your boss helps me find him, so long as I get the heads off him and his lil’ friends, the bodies are his.” 

Lazgha opened her mouth to scoff. Then shut it again. “These _friends_ ,” she said, with dawning suspicion. “What did they look like?” 

Kraglin’s knee bounced off Axley’s windpipe when the other man made to assume a more comfortable position. “Shit.” 

Vaas was about to reply, when a purple man with engineer’s rubber gloves shoved through the wall of Hordesmen. “Sorry – t’interrupt – problem – guns… Some Hraxian in a poncho…” Vaas and Lazgha shared a look across his sweating scalp. 

“Shit,” said Kraglin again, rather more poignantly. 

“I ain’t gonna be able to fly if you’ve thrown my back,” Axley hissed. Kraglin heaved a sigh, but retreated. 

Thankfully, the slit between seats revealed no more than Lazgha’s shiny topknot; the arrow was visible only from the gap on Axley’s side, and Yondu, with his impaired implant, remained oblivious. Although his hand was questing up towards the top of his head again. Kraglin snatched it – and, when confronted by too-wide eyes, projecting bewilderment and just a little hurt, firmed his mouth and shook his head in an adamant ‘no’. 

Whether Yondu was confused by the lack of air brushing his non-existent crest (of which Kraglin had never learnt the exact dimensions, nor the tale of how it was lost; but if there was ever a right time for breaching that minefield it wasn’t now), or if he was tired of the sticky plastic leaking over his forehead and attempting to scratch, any probing would result in revelation. And any revelation… Well, Kraglin didn’t know what Yondu might do. Whatever interest had been garnered by the faint puffs of plasma eating steel from the ship’s dark interior, it’d been relocated when Vaas arrived. But that distraction wouldn’t hold out against a screaming Centaurian. 

“We hold,” he muttered to Axley. “Just until they ain’t gonna near enough to shoot us before take off.” 

“Then what?” Yondu turned from one to the other, pointed ears twitching as they tried to follow the words. Kraglin caught the furtive glance, and hooked his wrists before he could make another exploration. Yondu’s wrists were sturdy and strongboned, the forearms under the poncho thickly threaded with muscle. But Kraglin’s fingers were longer, and he could pin them together – not so much that Yondu wouldn’t be able to break the hold if he wanted (which he did, again blinking when the motion came so much easier than expected) but enough to let him know he’d been caught. 

“ _No,_ ” Kraglin repeated, as Yondu pulled a familiar sneery grimace, sat on his hands, and pointedly glowered at the wall. “Yeah. That’s better.” 

Fuck, he hated kids. 

Axley shook him by the shoulder. “ _Then what_ , Kraglin?” 

Almost as much as he hated being in command. Still, this was Axley, and if Kraglin could wring pleasure out of shoving him about, it was a highlight on a godawful day – although his willingness to heed every order kinda drained the satisfaction. Almost as much as the knowledge that one slip could cost them all their lives. Kraglin turned on him with a terse frown. 

“Then, idiot, we fly like fuck and pray.” 

*** 

Peter sidled over to the corpsman, rocked back and forth in indecision, and eventually opted to get his attention with a quiet cough. It didn’t work. So Peter put on his best smile and channelled his inner curious child – how it’d survived three weeks under Ravager rule was a mystery, given Yondu’s responses to nosiness ranged from eye rolls to whistles – and tapped the corpsman on the shoulder. 

“Hi, mister!” he piped, cinching his belt in a notch when the gun tucked in his waistband threatened to slip. “Can you show me your ship?” 

The corpsman replied without turning round – “I don’t have any money for you, and if you try and steal from me, I will arrest you.” 

It was the one time he wished he had a comb to tame his hair. Peter made as good a job as he could with fingers and a scoop of mucus. “I’m no streetkid,” he said, trying to make it sound defensive. The corpsman shoved the last piece of purple hotdog into his mouth and chewed luxuriously. “Sure you’re not,” he said, once he’d swallowed. Peter grinned. That settled it – he must be a good guy. Ravagers always spoke with their mouths full. 

“No, seriously! I’m only on Knowhere because I was k-kidnapped.” He even managed to feign a tear. It was a moot effort, as the Nova officer had yet to turn around. 

“Sure, kid. Everyone’s got their sob story, but you still aren’t getting any of what’s in my wallet…” 

“I don’t want money!” Peter snapped. “I just want to see your ship!” If he could only get him close enough… He’d seen Yondu threaten enough people to know what tone of voice to use – even if his was significantly squeakier – and he figured that if he pressed the pistol to the corpsman’s back, nobody would guess he wasn’t walking of his own volition. 

“What, you want a lift to Xandar so you can report this to the authorities?” 

Or, he could do this without having to take a police officer hostage – which he was pretty sure was illegal, even in space. Peter beamed. “Yes!” 

“Well, tough luck. I’m on my off-day. Now scat.” 

…Perhaps he wouldn’t mind threatening to shoot him after all. The corpsman wiped his mouth on a napkin, crumpled it, and, rather than dropping it to join the litter cluttered about his boots, pushed it into a pocket to dispose of later. Peter’s mouth scrunched. He had watched the Nova Corpsmen eat their lunches, hooting at the simpering girls on the corner and washing every mouthful down with a good belly-slosher of weak-smelling alcohol. All but this one, who’d sat apart from the crowd and had yet to drink a drop. He _knew_ he’d chosen right, that this guy wasn’t like the rest. Even a fortnight-and-a-half in the company of space buccaneers had taught him it was important to pick your victims wisely, and observe before you acted – admittedly, advice that Yondu flouted as frequently as he followed, but he’d impressed it on Peter through the grind of his knuckles on his crown whenever Peter got into a fight with a crewmember more than twice his size. 

Peter decided to risk it. 

“You don’t mean that,” he said. “If a bunch of guys with guns came round that corner looking for me, you’d help.” 

The corpsman snorted. “What I wouldn’t give for your naiveté. Now beat it; I won’t tell you again.” He swung his leg over the bench, turning to stand – and froze at the sight of Peter’s face, which had been scrubbed beneath an ice-cold tap in the dock’s grubby bathroom, with its smattering of freckles over sore-free skin. “Huh. I guess you really aren’t a streetrat. Good for you.” 

“See! I am telling the truth!” 

“And I’m still on break.” 

The artery Peter had entered through was one of several clustered along the nasal wall. The petrified meat was honeycombed, blood vessels peeled apart to grant access to passages that snaked up into Knowhere’s eyesockets and down through the palette. Wire walkways zigzagged between, drizzling drunk corpsman like stagnant rain from a blocked pipe. But there, emerging from the construction’s cobweb-like shadow, were a group of people moving with more purpose. People enveloped in black rubber bodysuits, whose mirrored visors protruded buggishly out from their helmets and who had a stiffness to their sleeves that suggested concealed shocksticks. And on each one’s chest, emblazoned in glowing green tubing, was the sign of the Crab. 

Peter froze. “Uh, y’know what I said about guys with guns...?” 

*** 

“Captain-ma’am? We’re at the port, but the junk droid’s signal’s moving towards the Ravager base. That’s far out of its range: d’you think the kid spooked and headed home?” It was certainly possible. Vaas ignored Lazgha’s querying look, and spoke into her wristpiece. “Split up. Half of you search the Nova harbour, the other lot circle back. I’ll have my men on the galleon keep an eye open.” 

“Yes, captain-ma’am.” 

“Trouble?” Lazgha asked. Vaas’ smile was stony. 

“Nothing I can’t handle. Now, ‘bout this Hraxian…” 

“I assigned him and his friends to sewage draining,” said Lazgha, checking her clipboard. No holotech; just went to show how the Ravagers were superior in every way. Except, y’know, size. And colossal hull busting anti-aircraft cannons. “But sounds like they’ve abandoned their posts. If they are who ya say…” 

The smile stretched to show off every needle-point tooth. “They are.” 

“…Then I think it’s time for me to call my captain.” A hush swept through the banded Hordesmen. It was followed by a susurration of rustling leather, as everyone found somewhere else to be. 

Vaas’ tattooed unibrow formed a binary peak. “Can’t wait til my name has that effect,” she said. 

*** 

Peter sidestepped so that the corpsman was between him and the guards. They’d split into two teams, and while one was filtering back into the artery, that still left six creeps advancing down the dockyard, fanning out to start a methodical grid-search. 

“Please!” he hissed. “You have to help me!” 

“I’m on my break,” the corpsman insisted. But he didn’t sound convinced, and he swivelled between Peter and the oncoming guards as if he was spectating at a tennis match. “How’d a little thing like you annoy the Crab?” 

No time to regurgitate the whole story. “I told you! Kidnapping!” 

“Not Crab’s area of expertise, unless he needs a hostage. So what makes you so important?” 

Peter weighed the pros and cons. Gajit had warned him against mentioning Ravagers, and the last thing he needed was for this fellow to freak. But he didn’t know the names of any wealthy Xandarian families – Kraglin had drunkenly theorized about Isla once, but she’d punched him before he completed the ramble – and Peter couldn’t spin a convincing lie with no material to work with. Cannot build bricks without clay and so forth. So he reached under his shirt to squeeze the pistol, and said: “Have you heard of Yondu Udonta…?” 

“Oh god.” The corpsman turned pale so quickly that Peter was surprised he hadn’t started haemorrhaging. He shook his head and started to back away, Peter ducking and weaving after to stay out of view. “Oh no. Ravagers? I want no part in this. Seriously, kid. You cannot get any more unlucky.” 

“Please!” said Peter, and the crack in his voice was all real. “Please, I’m just a human – a Terran! I didn’t ask for any of this?” 

“A _Terran_?” wailed the corpsman. 

“I thought you said I couldn’t get more unlucky!” 

“Quiet down! If they hear you they might think you’re with me!” 

There was no choice. Peter unhooked the pistol from his waistband, darted in too fast for the corpsman to dodge and pressed it against the doughy tummy overhanging his belt. “I am with you,” he said, aiming for fierce. The corpsman’s hands hovered above his holsters – and Peter’s throat clenched at the thought of actually having to pull the trigger – but then flopped down at his sides. Peter exhaled. “I’m sorry, mister. Wish we could’ve done this the easy way… Now, which one’s your ship?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **IT'S BEEN AGES. Sorry. I kinda started tapping out a bunch of other stories. Even if I do decide to put this story on hiatus, I'll upload the next eleven chapters I've written! x**
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> **Please review. And, uh, sorry if it's poorly edited.**
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> ****


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Gajit steals a hat, and Peter's hijacking attempt goes almost as well as Yondu's.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Beginning of the promised chapter-dump!**

Gajit hurled herself into the spin as the droid whizzed around a corner, scattering pedestrians like ninepins. She pounded her heels on its metal dome, hot from the strain of the engine beneath, and gave the reins a fierce snap.

Not long, now. 

The cables were starting to fray at the roots. The modicum of artificial intelligence afforded to this thing – enough for it to discern ‘trash’ from ‘just left unattended for a moment; owner will return and be very annoyed if you’ve compacted it’ – didn’t quite stretch to comprehension of the current situation. As far as it was concerned, there was a small biotic creature clinging to its shell and impairing its primary function. But seeing as this creature threatened to render it inoperable should it disobey her, and was leading it through a network of fatty cheek deposits that were generously furbished with all kinds of rubbish, albeit outside the parameters of today’s designated workzone, it wasn’t being too ornery. The pausing to collect every dropped glass and greasy, fly-studded food package in its line of sight got kinda annoying. But Gajit had constructed blinkers out of a pair of trousers snatched from a dingy clothes stall, and they were now making fair headway. 

Which was good, because they were chasing her. 

Six of them, by her reckoning. All Crab’s men – so drilled in shockstick wielding, macguyvering, and murdering anything that got in their master’s way. But not so great at hunting. She’d stayed ahead of them so far, out of sight, perpetually around the next corner. But the cheek was phasing into jawbone, the margin indistinct after millennia of slow mineralization, and before long she’d be on the tongue, in the run-up to the Ravager dock. That was gonna be the biggest hurdle. A long straight uphill marathon of petrified tastebuds, no cover for miles to either side. Gajit had no idea how she was going to traverse it without being seen – or at least, without the Crab’s men noting Peter’s absence. But she’d figure that out when she got there. Wasn’t that half the fun? 

Gajit whooped as she zoomed above a gaggle of nattering tourists, nabbing herself a magnificent flouncy hat. It was a wide-brimmed monstrosity that trailed the feathers of various exotic and Nova-protected endangered bird species, and Gajit crammed it onto her head while flipping off the screeching woman, keeping her balance with her knees. 

She didn’t have long to celebrate. The channel was thinning vertically, ceiling and floor sloping steeply in. The squeeze bunched people together on either side, buyers and merchants alike who had to duck to pass. Flitting by overhead would be impossible. 

Well. It stopped her having to navigate the tongue, at least. Gajit yanked twice on the reins, urging a halt as the hatless woman stomped through the throng below, snorting and bellowing hard enough to push steam from her froglike nostrils – “Stop! Thief!” 

Evidently, she was new here. Gajit blew her a kiss. Then hurled the hat as hard as she could towards where the first soldier was clanking around the bend, jumped, and snickered at the woman’s lumbering withdrawal as she was swallowed by the crowd. 

*** 

“Sir! Sir, are you law enforcement? Some little rugrat just stole my hat!” 

The chief of the guards decided not to mention that they was in fact a _xir_. However, there was one flaw in the woman’s rhetoric which they couldn’t overlook, not even for the sake of propriety – “Madame, your hat is on your head.” 

There was a huff that lifted and dropped the woman’s bosom like a wave before the tide. “Yes, yes. But she stole it first!” 

“Who?” 

“That little girl! Disgusting, lice-ridden menace. Probably had scabies – oh, I should have sterilized this before putting it back on my head!” The chief could only pray she got her solutions jumbled and melted the thing. “I’ll be pressing charges, I assure you. This place is infested with brats like that; exterminate the lot of them, I say…” 

The chief slanted their eyes at their deputy, although from outside of the opaque visors nobody could tell. “A little girl. Tell me, did she have a boy with her?” 

The woman shook her head. Her feathers tickled the nose of the Kree behind her – who, having been an unwilling witness to her tirade, knew better than to protest. “Only a droid. I’ll bet she stole that too. Look – there it is!” 

There it was. Abandoned, evidently; its dome had been vivisectioned above the forelegs, and two weighty ropes of plastic ligaments draped scarf-like past their corresponding appendages. It swayed back and forth, overtaxed motor churning smoke. Of its rider, there was no sign. 

The chief smiled grimly. So, she’d hoped to lose them in the crush? Today was her lucky day. 

Addressing the lower mic broadcasted directly into their team’s helmets, cutting off all exterior sound. “False alarm. She baited us here – which means the boy must be at the Nova port after all. We’ll fall back and regroup with Second Squad in the nostrils. Offer a bribe to whatever officer’s highest ranking and get him and his men to blast off before we tear the place apart.” 

The five around them nodded, visors glinting. They pivoted to begin the retreat. Only the chief was halted, by an insistent prod at their shoulderpad: “Excuse me? Officer? What about my hat?” 

*** 

Gajit crawled between the legs of a mammoth Kronan, who was cooing over the wares of a cheap glass trinket stall and clogging traffic more efficiently than a fallen tree trunk, and darted to one side of the broad cavern to watch for her pursuers. 

And watched. And watched. 

The crowd waxed and waned, an inundation of Kree and Shi’ar and Outworlder in every shape, size, and skin texture imaginable. Two legs, three legs, four; tentacles and eyestalks and poddish protrusions that looked like they might burst at a touch. Then there were the Xandarians. Knowhere wasn’t much of a place for tourists, but there were always those who liked to slum it: sample life on the dark side. You could spot them from a mile – making too much of an effort to blend, engaging the locals in probing, stunted conversation, and bitching when folks did the universe a favour by snatching their ridiculous flouncy headgear. Other than them though, most people were here for a purpose. They shambled and they ambled, but they shambled and ambled in the direction of the nearest bar. Or brothel. Or lizard-fighting ring. Knowhere was a pit of decadence, and these were the people that wallowed in it. 

Gajit’s eyes skated skin blue, white, brown and pink, outfits that ranged from threadbare to kinkily outlandish, and ages from infant to ancient. But while the diversity would’ve made an anthropologist foam, there were no black-coated guardsmen among the multitudes. 

“Shit,” Gajit said, once enough time had elapsed that they must have suffered simultaneous cardiac arrest, or given up the pursuit. She sighed, and turned away. “Good luck, Petey. You’re on your own.” 

*** 

Peter wasn’t going to be on his own for long. If he could only get the corpsman to take him to his ship… 

“C’mon,” he wheedled. “I don’t _really_ wanna shoot you.” 

The man rubbed sweat of his pasty upper lip. Then peered down his nose at the pistol indenting his paunch. He sucked in, just enough to introduce a sliver of air between flab and barrel. “You do know it won’t actually fire until you pull the cocking pin?” 

Peter squinted at it. “Aw, seriously? Woah –!“ Pudginess was no detriment to speed. The corpsman smacked the gun out of his hands. It skittered under the bench, but not before cracking Peter’s fingers painfully back. “Ow, ow, ow!” Peter jumped away, hugging his throbbing knuckles. “What’d you do _that_ for?” 

“You pulled a gun on me,” the corpsman reminded him. He was watching Peter as if from a great distance, no sympathy in his eyes. “Seems those Ravagers rubbed off on you.” 

Peter fought to look desperate, and small, and every bit the scared child. It wasn’t hard. But he still couldn’t dampen an indignant “You didn’t exactly give me a choice!” – words which fell out before he had the sense to stop them. 

The corpsman drew himself up in preparation for a lecture. His chest filled almost enough to extend past his stomach. “There’s always a choice,” he said, sombrely. “The choice to do right.” 

Peter’s fists balled. “What, like hanging out on Knowhere? Leaving a kid to be _murdered_ by the Crab?” 

The corpsman’s blink was, he hoped, a little guilty. If he wasn’t going to rescue him, Peter sure as hell planned on haunting his nightmares. “That’s different. Self-preservation…” 

Peter opened his mouth to argue, but was stopped by the beep from the man’s blue-glinting earpiece. The corpsman’s lips thinned, and he scanned the cavern’s far corner, where one of the bugheaded minions conversed with a slim man in lieutenant’s epaulettes. “What’s he saying?” Peter whispered, throat clenched tight. “Is he looking for me?” 

There was a brief moment in which the corpsman looked at him – really looked at him, and saw a child being hunted to the death rather than a potential menace and current annoyance. Then it was gone. Peter saw the man barricade his empathy beneath a bulwark of overlaid determinations: _part-Ravager, all wild; too much trouble to be worth; Crab’ll only kill you too; you’re on your off-shift._

This was hopeless. He’d be better off getting a headstart. 

“Can I have my gun back?” he asked quietly. “I think I’m gonna need it.” 

The corpsman rubbed his nape, palms squeaking on the sweaty skin. He didn’t meet Peter’s eyes. “I. Uh. Won’t tell them where I saw you…” 

Peter sniffed and stared furiously at the ground until he’d gotten his wavering vision under control. _You might as well do. They’re gonna catch me anyway_. “Just go,” he said. 

The man cast one last look over his shoulder, at the boy in the grubby t-shirt. Mucus on his hair. Tears on his face. Peter sniffed again, wiped his nose on a trembling arm. Then dropped to his knees and started scraping for the pistol, outstretched fingers shaking as small, blunt-chewed nails carded dirt. The corpsman squeezed his lip as if he could wring the sweat away. Glanced up to where the lieutenant was marching towards his cruiser, smack of boots steadfast and sure. No hesitation. No pausing to inquire what – or who, exactly – it was that the Crab wanted so badly. The lieutenant didn’t want to know. Quite rightly, too. It was best not to get involved in these things. 

The corpsman turned away, and did his best to forget. 

*** 

“This is bad, this is bad, this is really, _really_ bad…” 

“You think I don’t know that?” Axley was unperturbed by the spray of Kraglin’s spittle across his cheek – or at least, saving his terror for a greater threat. He was more wan than tan, skin waxy with cold sweat, and Kraglin could count the goosepimples on his forearms as he shivered and squeezed an inch further into the nook beneath the pilot’s chair. The muscles in those forearms bunched as Axley grabbed Kraglin by the shoulders and shook him – 

“Jakael Romago, Kraglin. _Romago_. Y’know what they say about him…” 

“No,” said Kraglin. “I’ve been livin’ under a rock for the past twenty-five years.” 

“Ha ha! I’m serious! Are you honestly not a _lil’ bit terrified that he’s gonna butcher us and –_ “ 

Kraglin slapped a hand over Axley’s mouth, stifling whatever unmentionables were dire enough to be listed after butchery, rather than before. “I,” he growled, leaning in until their noses bumped, “am tryin’ very hard _not_ to panic right now. So. Please. Shut up.” 

There was a long moment, during which Axley’s four pupils slowly dilated and the breath moistening Kraglin’s palm went from hyper, to rapid, to something approaching normal. Kraglin waited until he nodded. Then released him, with a warning bare of teeth. Axley slumped against the chair back, forehead resting on the cool plastic, and let his burly shoulders relax. 

“I’m good,” he said. Even sounded like he meant it. Kraglin nodded, grateful – because if Axley was keeping his cool, then _he_ sure as hell couldn’t start gibbering and shrieking, which the tiny part of his brain repeating _Jakael Romago_ at heightening volumes was trying to insist that he do. So, one problem had been solved. Time to face the other. He turned to Yondu. 

“Hey, cap – fuck.” 

Axley stared at the Centaurian sprawled out on the floor. “Is he… asleep?” 

There was a niggle in Kraglin’s mind telling him that wasn’t a good sign, what with untold brain damage and all. There was a bigger niggle saying Yondu was easier to deal with unconscious, and he should make the most of this window while it lasted. “Let’s just get outta here,” he muttered, taking care not to jostle Yondu’s boot as he crawled by. A snatched glimpse between the seats told him that they were clear. Lazgha and Vaas must’ve retired to Romago’s boudoir, or wherever it was that he entertained his guests. “Axley? Get us in the air.” 

*** 

Peter was running. 

Peter seemed to do a lot of that, lately. 

Perhaps it was time to take a step back. Get some perspective. Sort out his life, adjust himself, find some of those fabled ‘positive influences’ his mom had mentioned… 

Peter wheezed, pausing only to kick over a stool. It slammed into the winding passage between the picnic benches; one guard went tumbling but there another took his place. Peter kept running. Eventually the gasp and suck of air became soothing, mantra-esque. He shaped it into words. They were too high and spitty for coherence but poignant nonetheless: 

“IhatemylifeIhatemylifeIhatemylifeIhatemylife…” 

His gun jostled about in his hands. He aimed a few wild shots behind him, but despite what the action movies claimed, blindly spewing plasma into an area the size of a football stadium when you only had twelve assailants didn’t actually make you liable to hit anything. 

“IhatemylifeIhatemylife!” Yondu’s control console collection had been executed without cause. 

Still, the noise and flash was enough to make the guards pause. Peter took the opportunity to get his bearings. The Nova were gone. Withdrawn to their ships and blasted off, to circle in the aether and look the other way. They were going to let him _die_ , because he was just one little boy in a very big universe and they’d rather he catch a lightning bolt to the chest than risk catching one themselves. 

This dock was an onshore Mary Celeste. Peter spied jackets, draped forgotten over their owners’ seats. Half-eaten stall food and sour-smelling bottles cluttered each tabletop, grease soaking through slimy napkins. The bottles were at varying levels of fullness. As air was tugged towards the faulty vacuum-shield a thousand metres under the gaping nostril, their damp rims sang: arpeggios from a deaf choir. 

The benches themselves were snap-out chrome constructions that weren’t half as flimsy as they looked. Peter discovered it was faster to scramble over them than dodge between – but then lightning gashed the table besides him and the whole thing lit and popped like a frying transformer box. After that, it was best to stay grounded. 

“IhatemylifeIhatemylife _Ihatemylife_ …” 

The nostril loomed ahead. Only ‘loomed’ was the wrong word; it loomed downwards, away from him, a well with no bottom which did not creep or encroach but _dropped_ , in a sheer transition from solid mildewy walls to the twisty ribbons of a far-off nebula. Thinking about it made Peter dizzy. Looking resulted in nausea, and running towards it was like sprinting into the open jaws of an alligator. But Peter didn’t dare shut his eyes. If he was fast enough, he could reach the edge and round the corner before they caught up. They were big, but that made them clumsy. Peter had the advantage so long as they were navigating this debris-strewn expanse of dockyard, and while his wild zigzags sent lightning flashing on either side, no blasts hit him. 

Good thing too. One blast and he’d be pulverized. Peter leapt a smocking scorchmark, stomach several strides behind, and made for the cliff with every ounce of adrenaline he had. 

He was gonna make it. 

He was gonna _make it_. 

Get around the nostril and he could dart into one of the capillaries that knotted and braided the rear of the cavern, lose them in the labyrinth. Crawl into Gajit’s tunnels and sustain himself on Knowhere-snot until the Crab lost interest. It’d be gross, but he’d survive. Then he’d sneak back to the harbour one night. Find himself a wussier candidate, and stow away properly. Peter gripped the gun until his nail splintered against the plastic grip. No firing pin on a plasma pistol. He’d learnt from his mistake, and next time, he shot the a-hole. 

A lightning blast clipped his boot. 

Well – it didn’t _clip_ it; if it had _clipped_ it Peter would be charcoal. But it hit hard enough to hurl him forwards, and Peter’s arms span in helpless circles as the nostril grew, and grew, and _grew_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **The line about Yondu's control console trinkets being sacrificed harks back to an early chapter (I can't remember which one) where you find out why Yondu was mad at Peter. It involved target practice.**
> 
> **I know I'm uploading these in quick succession, but do feel free to comment on any one, at any time. You know how much I love interacting with you guys. x**
> 
> ****


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Peter is dead, Kraglin is escaping, and Vaas is plotting. Again.**

To remove one’s mask was a sign of respect afforded only to the closest fallen comrades. One small Terran, pernicious though he might have been, didn’t make that grade.

The Chief stood, a pillar of black fabric that sucked in all light but that which was exuded by the suit’s blue conductivity seams, silhouetted over the dusky violet swirl of the nebula. They glowered down the nostril, just in case it felt repentance and decided to regurgitate its victim. No such victim was yielded. 

Nothing for it then. The chief nodded to their team to fall back, rolled their shoulders in a stiff, cleansing circle, gave their shockstick a brief inspection for damage… Then remembered that they could only procrastinate for so long before Vaas called demanding updates. Best to rip the bandage off quick and dial her first. They sidled a calculated distance away from their team to ensure the yelling didn’t seep through the helmet, and activated the internal mic. 

“Job’s done,” they said. 

Vaas held up a finger. _Sorry_ , she mouthed to Romago. _Gotta take this_. “Head retrieved?” 

On the other end of the line, the chief refused to gulp. “Negative.” 

Oh, she could sigh. Or kill something. Preferably kill something. “Job ain’t done then, is it?” 

There was a silence. Then – “He fell outta Knowhere’s nose. He’s dead.” 

“Is this something I should be made aware of?” asked Romago mildly. 

They were enjoying the delights of a dingy Horde-run bar, which operated as an unapologetic front for an interspecies anything-goes boxing ring. Roars, crunches, shrieks, and the occasional alarming splat percolated the wall, and every now and then there would be a ground-shaking that had the bottles vibrating on their dusty shelves. The barman stood in front of these, mopping his counter with a staunch apathy that would’ve been impressive had Vaas not known he was deafer than Morlug. Couldn’t have him squealing no secrets when the Horde were offworld, could you? 

It was a nice get-up though. So thought Vaas, squeaking back on the dark blue sofa and swilling her courtesy-drink in tight circles. Cosy-like. Say what you wanted about the Horde captain (and they did say many things, none of which bore repeating in Ravager-company let alone anywhere considered _polite_ ) but you couldn’t fault his sense of style. 

Romago lounged in a plump armchair. The solar panel overhead afforded a flattering candlelight glow to his craggy face. A pipe was propped on the pads of two up-pronged fingers, and Vaas knew from the spice of the smoke that it was stuffed with uncut huffer root, best of the best. Captain of the Horde could certainly afford it. Clouds bulged in tumid rolls, amorphously ovoid, each fresh puff melding into its prior. But hypnotically soothing as those wafts might be – sent up with automaton regularity as Romago lifted the pipe to his lips, smiled, pulled, released, and lowered again – they couldn’t disguise the man beneath. 

Freaky robot limbs. Freaky robot monocle. Freaky robot smile. Fuck, it was harder to read than _Udonta_ ’s. Vaas stiffened her facial muscles, and managed not to twitch when the metal eye started to whirr around its socket like a ripcord top. 

“Minion issues,” she said, nodding to the wristpiece. “Y’know how it is.” 

Back in the nose-cave, the chief rubbed the sides of their visor in lieu of reachable temples. “Captain-ma’am, the mic is still on. And technically, we ain’t _your_ minions; we’re in the service to Mister Crab…” 

Vaas tuned them out. “Bring me the head,” she said shortly. “Or I’ll cut off yours once I’ve collected Udonta’s.” 

Romago steepled broad metal fingers under his chin, pipe resting on the chairarm. His expression never wavered, mouth a pleasant curve and single brow echoing it; but Vaas got the impression that any mildness had just taken a turn for the glacial. “My apologies. I wasn’t aware that we had come to an agreement regarding which of us gets Udonta.” 

Snapping her wristpiece shut, Vaas waited for the screams from next door to silence – and the subsequent cheers. Then plastered on her sweetest smile. It was a little too reminiscent of an angler fish to be saccharine, but it did the job. “Oh, I figured that were self-explanatory,” she said. 

Romago’s smirk, while less pointy, held a sort of sour amusement that usually preceded a judge donning a black cap. “Really.” His golden monocle span again, exterior lenses clicking over the marble embedded in his eyesocket, and Vaas felt a prickle of radiation, as if he’d taken an x-ray and mapped her bones. Sniffing for weakness. 

He wouldn’t find it, not if he prised her open to the marrow. 

Idly scratching her initials into the table with the tip of the inactive arrow, Vaas nodded. “Really. I want Udonta’s head to show the Crab, so he’ll back me in my bid for captaincy – at which point he’ll do whatever weird shit he wants to do with it. You just wanna do weird shit to it.” 

Romago didn’t deny it. “They do advise to cut out the middle man.” 

“Hm. As that middle man, ya can see why I ain’t inclined to agree.” 

“And as the captain of the Horde,” said Romago, resettling his pipe on its finger-perch and blowing steady plumes from his nostrils, “you can see why I’m inclined to kill you where you sit and do what I want with Udonta and his friends, be they alive or dead.” 

Vaas chipped at the tip of the V. The arrow scraped steel at a painful register, yaka juddering in her hand. “Ya don’t wanna do that,” she said mildly. 

Romago creaked back on his seat. “Give me a reason.” 

Saying the Crab would support her would be about as helpful as proclaiming herself Ravager captain here and now. Romago’d fillet her for the fun of it. And while Vaas didn’t reckon the Horde could take the Ravagers in a fight – they might be _bigger_ , but the Ravagers were _better_ – she wasn’t haughty enough to pretend it wouldn’t be close. Damn close. And it certainly wouldn’t do her any good before Romago finished with her; heck, the Ravagers hadn’t even accepted her bid yet, and they’d rather let her be flayed than fling themselves into a war of attrition for a captain none of them had vouched for. Vaas had nothing to fly on but the prize at hand. But she was Hraxian, and Hraxians were known for three things – sharp teeth, ripping out spines when irked, and excellent haggling skills. 

She removed the arrowhead from the table – it seemed to hum in relief – and started using it to pick her nails instead. “Awright. If Udonta’s alive – which he may well be, given that Obfonteri and Axley are still haulin’ him about… You get him. Whole. No questions asked. So long as ya saw his head off when you’re through, o’course, and post it to Crab. Deal?” 

The curl of smoke from Romago’s mouth was far too controlled to be natural. The long exhale quivered a little towards its close, and Vaas knew she had him. “And if he’s dead?” 

Vaas shrugged. “Crab didn’t specify he had t’have the _actual_ head. I guess a picture would do. So long as I get the others for Crab to mount in his trophy room or whatever, Udonta’s yours.” 

There was a long pause, during which the crashes from the ring nextdoor underwent a triumphant crescendo and climaxed in a drawn-out wail, and the wreathes of Romago’s huffer-smoke slunk around Vaas’ hunched shoulders like a gaseous, spice-scented boa. Then Romago clicked the shutter over the pipe-vent, dousing the flame at a tap of a button. He shook loose ash from the bowl into a saucer set into the table. His bulky metal fingers handled the instrument with a daintiness that only came from fine-tuned mechanics and an expertly crafted neural-net, and they gripped his glass firmly but delicately when he lifted it once in silent toast. It was harder to tell with the robotic one – but Vaas saw that his human eye never left hers. 

“Deal,” he said, and held out a cold steel hand to shake. 

*** 

“Alright,” whispered Kraglin. “We go on my command.” It felt like a conversation for whispers. Although the Horde wouldn’t be eavesdropping through the spaceproof cockpit glass, there was still Yondu to think of; Axley’d strapped him into the co-pilot’s seat again, which meant Kraglin’d have to surf out any turbulence in take-off – but better him go bashing off walls than the guy with serious brain damage. 

The guy with serious brain damage who had suffered two bouts of regressive amnesia before collapsing, and had yet to reawaken. 

Yeah. Kraglin wasn’t worried. Not one bit. Yondu’d snapped out of it once before – twice, in fact. And sure, it hadn’t exactly been _Yondu_ , but it proved that no more… _drastic measures_ , were required. 

Thank fuck. Yeah, he’d’ve done it if he’d had to, but he’d sure as heck’ve felt shit about it afterwards. 

Kraglin sighed. Conscious of Axley, he didn’t give in to the urge to press a quick kiss on his captain’s lax mouth. Although that might be just what he needed. Jerk him out of it – if only to punch him and snarl at him for _sentiment._

Kraglin would have to test the theory at a later date. Preferably once they were underway. The flicker of welding tools as the engineers set the damage he’d done to the targeting system to rights was like a faraway bonfire, and who knew how long it would take Vaas to win Romago over and organize a search? He squeezed Axley’s shoulder – ugh, why did anyone even _need_ that much muscle – and steadied himself on the backs of the dual pilot chairs. 

“Axley? Take us up.” 

*** 

The first hint was the silence. The second was the yelling that followed and the third was the smattering pop of several plasma pistols being discharged at once. “The canons!” Lazgha yelled outside. “Get the goddam cannons!” 

“They ain’t ready!” an engineer wailed. “Targeting system’s still down, and we’re only halfway through patchin’ the damage to the cables on the southern one –“ 

“Bazookas then! Anything! Just _get them out of the air_!” 

“Wait, wait! That’s my ship!” 

Vaas and Romago stormed outside to find a dockyard in chaos: Hordesmen taking potshots at a craft that was angling for the mouth’s exit, with assorted success. “Forget the guns!” Romago roared, collaring the protesting Hordesmen who’d lost his vessel and reeling him shrieking in. He placed one dinner-plate palm on either side of the creature’s head – a lizardlike goon from the outworlds, taller than Romago but somehow dwarfed by those animatronic limbs – and squeezed until his eyeballs popped. Then turned on the goggling Horde, and threw his bloody hands to the sky. “After them! Fools!” 

*** 

He’s dead. 

He knows it. He must be. There’s no other answer, no possible happy solution – and seriously, screw Knowhere for its lack of safety regulations, because he would’ve thought it was common sense to put a fence around the massive dang hole in the floor that opened into space. But nope. Not even a warning sign. Just a shimmery, yellowish forcefield which held in the air while letting ships, dropped objects, and falling Terrans slide on through. 

“I thought Terrans died in vacuums,” said a voice. It didn’t sound much like God. Peter blinked awake – not to the pearly gates or the Spirit in the Sky, or even to mom (dammit), but to the corpsman’s pudgy face, reflected on the inside of the glass. The Nova pod’s nippy little engine burbled cheerfully beneath him, and Knowhere was a receding blob soon lost in the swirling nebula. Peter pressed a shaking hand to his forehead. It came away crusty, a glove of grainy dead skin and ice. 

“So did I,” he said. And threw up. 

“Aw, did you have to puke –“ 

“I was in _space_ ,” Peter wheezed, curled over his soggy knees. “Cut me some slack.” 

“Yes, you were in space for five minutes before I realized your eyeballs weren’t exploding. Which we’ve already established is _not possible_ for Terrans – so remind me again of what you are?” 

Peter shuddered, wiping the sour strings from his chin. Waited until he was sure he wasn’t going to retch again before replying – “It’s the truth! I’m a Terran! I dunno why I’m still alive – maybe Yondu experimented on me, or something…” 

The corpsman gripped the joystick as if he were throttling it. “Oh yeah. The other part of your story. _Yondu Udonta_. Isn’t he – oh, I don’t know – going to want you back? Along with those Crab’s men who’re going to wonder where your body’s gone when they get back with the space-worthy retrieval craft? And – what the hell am I doing?” He hit the brakes. “I am turning this ship around.” 

Oh no. Peter clambered to his feet, fighting to ignore the tremble in his limbs. “No! No, please! You don’t have to worry about Yondu, I promise.” 

The corpsman eyed him mistrustfully. “Oh? And why’s that?” 

Peter swallowed. “Because he’s dead.” 

There was a jolt, as the corpsman flared the thrusters by accident. “What? Really!” 

Saying it made it realer. Peter ducked his chin and bit his lip to stop it wobbling. “Yeah,” he whispered. “He’s dead, and I got nobody now.” 

A long pause. Peter felt the corpsman’s eyes skate him top to trembling bottom, and scrubbed his knuckles over his leaking eyes so he didn’t have to meet that unsympathetic stare. He almost tripped backwards when the engines restarted, a nasally mosquito-whine that spat them forwards towards the Nova ship. “I’ll give it to you, kid” the corpsman grumbled, as Peter’s ankles gave out and deposited him on his ass, head banging on the armrest in the cramped interior. “You know how to pull them. So yeah. You’ve got me, I guess.” 

Peter could start crying all over again. But no. He had to be strong – what was it Yondu said? _Don’t ever get weak out here, boy. Galaxy’ll eat you up and spit out the bones._ He dithered over thanking the man, but eventually figured it’d only sound forced – after all, he’d already left him to die once and nearly handed him over, and really, he’s only folding in the face of Peter’s stubborn inability to expire. Even if it _had_ been third-time-lucky though, he’s saved Peter’s life. And given what they’ve been through, they were well overdue an introduction. Peter coughed, getting the blubbery scratch from his throat, then adopted as casual a lean as was possible on the spacepod’s walls without banging his elbow on any buttons. “I, uh, I’m Peter. But you can call me Star Lord.” 

The corpsman’s mouth was taut, pulling his face into premature frownlines. But there might have been a hint of a smile buried there. “Cute nickname,” he said. 

“It’s an _outlaw_ name –“ 

“Still cute.” He glanced at Peter in the reflection, and let the edges of that grin show. “I’m Dey. Nice to meet you, Star-Prince.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **You know the drill! Drop me a comment if you likey. x**


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which a grand escape is made.**

They were following them. Of course they were. A swarm of steel flies, lifting into the air on powerful thrusters. Horde ships were stockier than Ravager fare, their iron-padded bottoms designed for getting above an enemy in atmosphere and letting gravity do the rest of the work. They called them ‘wrecking balls’ for a reason. Unwieldier to handle they might have been, but they were also a fair bit thicker about the hull – for which Kraglin was grateful, as the first of several impacts juddered home.

He flailed away from the seats, tossed about the heaving craft like a fish in a shaken bag. Thankfully, the doorjamb got in the way before he could bounce into the hold. “Owfuck! Axley!” 

“They’re chasing us!” Axley screamed. Kraglin tried to roll his eyes, but he was having a hard enough time focussing already, what with the ship quaking hard enough to top the Richter scale. 

“What, you thought they was just gonna wave bye-byes?” 

Thank fuck they’d gotten a headstart. These buggers took a while to accelerate – no wonder M-ships flew circles around them – but once they got going their momentum could propel them through most obstacles. Only problem was, they didn’t _steer_ all too well. Kraglin yelped as a percussive blast fragmented over their armoured shell, flames licking the windscreen. 

“Are you flying us _into_ their sights?” 

“This baby ain’t exactly built for dogfighting!” 

Belted to the co-pilot’s chair, Yondu’s head dangled boneless at the end of his neck, his jaw clacking at every lurch. Blue blood slathered his chin. Kraglin just hoped he hadn’t bitten his tongue off – that’d make whistling bloody difficult, once Kraglin’d gotten his arrow back. Which he would do. Eventually. It was on the to-do list. He just had to… work out a plan. After getting them out. And dumping Yondu off at the nearest medicentre. Only – wait. Wouldn’t that be what Vaas was expecting? 

Kraglin used the doorframe to pull himself upright, locking out his trembling knees. Then braced himself inside it when a shot hammered their left flank, the plates vibrating in his white-knuckled grip. “She can sure take a pummelling,” he gasped. Axley, straps biting his burly shoulders, angled them diagonally across Knowhere’s white-furred tongue. The floor was jam-packed with marvelling merchants, all new to town – the locals had long since fled for the tunnels, knowing the damage one of these ships could cause when it fireballed to earth. Which was probably gonna be the outcome of this little venture. But heck, they’d take some of them with ‘em first. 

“Think ya can handle the peashooters on this thing?” Axley asked. 

Kraglin unhooked from his sanctuary in increments and inched along the wall. He side-shuffled behind the chairs, then squeezed around in front of them, scanning the array of switches and levers partitioned into the copilot’s half of the dashboard. “Sure,” he said. Cracked his knuckles. “If ya hold her steady enough for me to aim.” 

Axley grappled them out the way of the next broadside. They yawed across the tongue, mashing any unfortunate junk droids that got in their way. Now, if only they made those things _sturdier_. And _bigger_. And gave them robotic arms… “If I hold her steady, they’ll shoot us more!” 

Kraglin shook himself from the distraction. “…Good point. I’ll just. Uh. Aim as best I can. Standing here.” Here: awkwardly hunched at the neck to squint through the windscreen, long fingers tapping at the targeting screen as he bent over Yondu’s lap. Axley glanced sideways. Then wrenched his attention back to where it was needed, swerving them away from the prow of a high-pronging scaffold set up in the tongue’s central groove. The industrial skeleton stretched from floor towards the ridged ceiling, a stalagmite in a cave, and the beginnings of the new structure – some sort of suspended gallery, a brothel-bar to welcome incoming ships – perched on its tip like a deconstructionist’s chandelier. Axley had to slam the brakes, and those reacted so slowly that he wound up shearing one pole off halfway. The ship hottest on their tail fared no better, ploughing through slats and boards and steel sheets as if they were cobwebs. Kraglin, legs already cramping, swore and buckled onto the console, peppering pedestrians with an accidental barrage. 

“Just sit on him,” Axley hissed, as they screamed and began their belated scramble for safety. 

Kraglin’s gawp was scandalized. “You kidding? What if he wakes up and tries to kill us again? Or worse – remembers? He’ll be laughin’ for _years_.” But when Axley manoeuvred them behind one of the trailing ships, Kraglin popped it right in the engine pod and the big guy quit complaining. It was, sadly, down to luck. Kraglin’d gotten accustomed to nippy lil’ M-ships that combined piloting with firing, and only being able to aim within his field of vision while also being unable to _change_ that field of vision was proving frustrating. 

“Spin her _this_ way –“ 

“You want us to ram them head on?” 

“Well, how else’m I meant to get a good shot?” 

Lips were fast approaching, and beyond them, the open swell of space. Knowhere’s rotting incisors had been quarried to make way for the Ravager barracks. Yondu’d probably suggest they wave. Kraglin watched him, praying for a twitch, a prickle of awareness, anything – but the implant remained hollowed and dull. Yondu’s eyelids might as well have been closed drawbridges. Kraglin sighed and uncrimped his neck, peering instead into the vertical crisscross of landing platforms and docking cranes sawn into Knowhere’s front teeth. Ravagers streamed from tunnels and swung from ledge to ledge like tics in a dog’s ear. 

Kraglin wasn’t Yondu. He also wasn’t stupid (the two things not _necessarily_ being related…) and as he didn’t know how many men Vaas had courted over to her side before setting this up, tempting fate – as well as a drove of M-ships to outrun, on top of the wrecking balls already barrelling along in their exhaust stream – by catching the Ravagers’ attention sounded like a great way for them all to wind up dead. And – 

_Oh._

Kraglin smiled. 

“Get in close,” he said, nodding Axley down over the Ravagers, many of whom were watching from the multitude of holes that dappled their tooth-dock’s upper side. Axley frowned but did as he was told, egged on by Kraglin’s serrated grin. 

“Why? You wanna signal for hel –“ 

The ship behind them fired. Axley swerved – just far enough to let the shot bludgeon through a standing M-ship, cockpit stripped for repairs. The pleasant low hum – Ravagers hustling bets on who’d be first to die: whichever Horde-scum idiot had been stupid enough to desert or his pursuers – jarred off. It was replaced by angry yells. A plethora of red-clad figures spurted from the tooth, hauling themselves up into their M-ships with furious glee. 

Captain’s boys were always spoiling for a fight. Just like they’d been raised. And when it came to the Horde? All any self-respecting Ravager needed was an excuse. 

The oncoming wrecking balls were cut off by the gunning thunder of a dozen M-ship engines. Kraglin, Axley and Yondu’s craft was ignored – too far gone, too close to escape to be worth the effort – and the Ravagers focussed on the cluster of Hordesmen about to trespass on their territory. 

From the sounds of plasma fire and the infernal ripple of explosions off the inside of the Celestial’s cheeks, it was a helluva fight. Really, thought Kraglin, interlacing his hands behind his head, Mohawk bobbing in self-congratulation, it was almost a shame to miss it. 

Their ship spat from Knowhere’s withered lips. The crackle of gunfire and faraway screams were swamped by silence as they punctured the atmospheric skein, Knowhere’s artificial gravity folding in behind them. Axley’s elated holler sounded kinda lame without the noisy backdrop; he sheepishly turned it into a cough, and steered them to hover before Knowhere’s pitted philtrum, out of range of any stray blasts. “You alright, sir?” he asked. 

Kraglin looked to the hulking Ravager frigates on automatic, noticing for the first time that a Nova cruiser was hovering above them – well, _perpendicular_ to, technically; stupid three-dimensional space navigation. No help there though. Either they’d get arrested, or these Nova – corrupt officials from the Kyln and the stockades – would jump at the chance and deliver them to the Crab themselves. 

But perhaps the Corps would be kind enough to assist with their… _other_ problem. 

“Yeah,” he said. Turned, propping his ass on the console as he started picking at Yondu’s seatbelt buckle. He answered Axley’s quizzical eyebrow with a sneer – albeit a breathless one, as Yondu slumped forwards and he suddenly found himself bearing a little more weight than he’d bargained for. “We’re alright. Or at least, we will be.” 

*** 

Peter pressed his palms flat against the convex glass, the pod’s interior bulb all that stood between him and the void, and gasped. _Space._ He never got used to it. 

Sure, he’d been on M-ships before – when Yondu first stole him, notably. But back then he’d been too scared to do much more than scream, and hadn’t exactly been up for sightseeing. Yondu’d locked him in the low hold, spitting something in that croaky alien language; he’d later told Peter it’d been for his own safety, as a bunch of the boys had been eyeing him up hungry-like, but Peter suspected it was more so he didn’t have to hear him cry while he flew them away from the only home Peter’d ever known. For the rest of his three week sojourn with the Ravagers, he’d been buried in the galleon’s underdecks. Scampering out of everyone’s way, getting lost in crawlspaces, falling through open trapdoors… It’d been like being trapped in a nightmarish jungle-gym, but it hadn’t been very _spacey_. 

This – a convoy of prickly Nova ships swooping on all sides, above and below, _up_ and _down_ fluxing into each other and all sense of direction swamped by the endless black – was _incredible_. He wanted to stay here forever – wheeling through the cosmos, one speck in an ocean of stars. 

“It’s beautiful,” he breathed. Dey side-eyed him like he’d started foaming at the mouth. 

“It’s a Nova Cruiser. Nothing special – a bit swankier than a lot of the tech this far from galactic civilization, sure; but the Kyln doesn’t have the best funding so she’s not as shiny as she ought to be.” 

There was an explanation buried somewhere in among all those unfamiliar terms, but Peter had no idea of how to extract it. “Why don’t you have funding?” he asked, because he couldn’t think of anything else. Dey’s grimace was directed at the glossy, elegant lines of the spaceship ahead of them – and it was a _proper_ spaceship, all sleek and shiny and aerodynamic, not like the _Eclector_ which looked kinda like a hewn-off rusty cistern in good light. 

“Because the government’s wise that half of what they give will be siphoned into my bosses’ pockets. A-holes.” 

Peter wasn’t sure if he was talking about the bosses or the government, but either way, it didn’t sound optimistic. “You have a shit job,” he said, sagely. Blinked, at Dey’s wide-eyed glance. “What?” 

“You’re too young to swear!” 

“I’m twelve, I’m not a baby –“ 

“Oh god, you’re twelve. Twelve, and you’ve got Ravagers and Crab’s men on your tail…” Peter eyed him warily, just in case Dey was having another change of heart. He still had his pistol – Dey’d forgotten to confiscate it, or assumed it’d been dropped – and he wasn’t afraid to use it. ( _Okay_. He wasn’t afraid _much_.) But Dey merely shook his head and continued dictating his monologue to the approaching cruiser as he wrung the steering shaft between his pudgy hands. “Honestly. This is ridiculous. I was supposed to be having an off-day, and _why_ do I have a conscience, and…” 

“Didn’t fucking stop you leaving me before!” 

Dey’s glare was agrieved. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” 

“ _No,_ because –“ Peter broke off. “Whatever. What’re you gonna do with me?” 

Dey glared at the Nova ship. With all the other pods flying at the same speed – except a flagger, whose misfiring engine rods trailed glittery lilac ribbons across the abyss – the massive cruiser could almost be hurtling towards them, rather than the other way around. “Isn’t that the question,” he said. 

*** 

“Axley?” Kraglin scanned the passing pods, each star-shaped vessel throwing back the light of Knowhere’s bioluminescent pores. One lagged behind the droves. “I’m gonna need ya to get us up close and cosy with her.” 

“Why?” Axley asked, although half his mind was on checking Knowhere’s flesh stripped mandibles for pursuit. 

Kraglin took a breath. “Because I’m gonna nick her, and take the captain with me. Then you’re gonna fly fast as fuck in the opposite direction.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Belated comment for the last chapter - Romago's a very creepy dickwad who appears in a much nastier fic that I wrote involving him and Yondu. It's not a happy story. Don't read it.**


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Peter joins the Nova Corps and Kraglin steals another ship.**

Three weeks and two days ago, Peter’s biggest concern (once he’d gotten the obligatory _I’m in space_ freak-out out the way) would’ve been how Dey planned on steering their buzzing little starship through the dense swirl of other little starships, which coiled about the cruiser’s entry port like matter around a galactic core. Now, he didn’t notice the sudden smoothness of the ride as the magnetic tractor beam locked on, isolating their ship’s unique alloy makeup and plotting a course that slalomed them through the busy dock without so much as scraping another craft’s wingmirror. In lieu of that hazard, his mind found another problem to latch onto.

“Hey, Dey?” 

“Yeah?” 

“How’re you gonna get me aboard with no one seeing?” 

A pause. “Are you kidding?” Dey’s voice edged into a familiar pitch of hysteria. “Do you know how much trouble I could get in if I don’t report you? Smuggling Terrans is illegal!” Peter stared at him. Dey settled the ship into autopilot, and released the steering wheel to illustrate his disbelief with both hands. “ _Even more_ illegal than killing them! So why would I do that?” 

He’d just answered his own question. Peter probably didn’t need to spell it out for him, but you never knew: “So, if you’re the nicest Nova corpsman around and _you_ still left me –“ Dey winced, but it wasn’t like Peter planned on letting him forget it any time soon, “-D’you really think the others will wait before dragging me back to the Crab?” Or just hauling him out the airlock and being done with him. Peter shivered. “Look, I can be quiet. And small. Just get me somewhere I can hide until there’s nice cops around, and I’ll stay out of your way.” 

Dey side-eyed him, but seemed to ponder his words. His beefy jaw was set, and there was sweat darkening his issue-blue collar. “You really think you can do this alone?” 

Of course he could. He was _Star-Lord_. Peter bristled. “I’ve gotten this far!” 

“ _Just_. Look, you’re one tough kid. Tough enough to survive five minutes in a vacuum, which you still haven’t explained –“ 

“Because I don’t know how I did it!” 

“ – But you’re not invincible. You need help. And you’ll get it.” Peter’s squint was dubious. Dey channelled his embarrassment into a frustrated exhale. “Yes, I mean from me! Look, I’ve committed. So I’m going to see this through to the end. Don’t write me off so soon, kid.” 

“Star-lord,” Peter corrected. He smiled when Dey made a sound between a scoff and a laugh, and ducked behind his chair as the vast carved oval of the dock engulfed them. “And I _knew_ you were a nice guy.” 

*** 

Nova hangars weren’t like Ravager ones. For a start, they weren’t _hangars-plural_ at all, but rather one _hangar-singular_ : a wide froglike mouth, or possibly an aperture elongated vertical-ways like a pair of sucked-in kissy fishlips. It opened into a cavernous hold the size of the _Eclector_ ’s entire base-deck: engines, docks, matter converters and all. The rear wall and ceiling were composed of neat gridded inlets, arranged in fractal shapes like the view through a monochrome kaleidoscope. A thousand different deployment units clipped up into a thousand electro-magnetic locks. Each ship angled into a bay, parallel-parking on a vertical street, autopilot switching to manual for the duration of the fiddly manoeuvre. 

A tap of Dey’s thumb on a bottom had the magnets clamping. The top and bottommost star-tips of their shuttle were swallowed by wire helices. Current engaged with a soft hum; Peter tensed in expectation of the tremble, the one that reverberated through the entire Ravager galleon like thunder trapped in metal, which Yondu and Kraglin and the others never seemed to notice but had had Peter barfing a grand total of seven times. It’d taken _hours_ for his inner ears to settle, and longer for his stomach to stop impersonating Old Faithful. 

But here – there was nothing. No rattle, no shake. Certainly no queasiness. Peter decided that his geyser-impression must’ve been the fault of dodgy old Ravager engines, as opposed to the fragile Terran digestive system Yondu had blamed. 

Phew. If he was gonna be a famous space-adventurer, he couldn’t be chundering whenever he set foot on a new ship. 

“Alright!” he whispered to Dey. “Now what?” 

Dey groped above his head and gave a red-painted lever a hearty yank. The vessel twizzled on its axis as if the magnets had shot a rod through its centre. Walls and bays flashed past as the ship made a full one-eighty, and in place of the swooping, majestic gulley of the Nova port Peter found himself standing in an unassuming corridor: a hollow segmented cylinder, lighting evenly spaced and uniformly bright. White paint peeled from metal walls. 

He tried to hide his disappointment. “This is it?” Dey’s craft trembled. Peter’s intestines squirmed in nauseous preparation; but the vibration ceased as soon as started, and Peter gaped as gossamery gold waxed at every corner of his vision, an airtight forcefield that blossomed from each of the star’s spikes like a thick-woven spiderweb. Dey’s ship, back facing the vacuum, had filled the hexagonal space designated to it with shimmery energy, encapsulating the front half of the pod within the tunnel mouth. “Wow!” 

Dey looked pleased. “Impressed?” 

Peter hastily crossed his arms. “As if.” 

He wasn’t dismissive enough. Dey swooped a hand up and over, voice proud as a well-paid tour guide’s: “Each passage is accessible only to one ship – makes it easier to prevent invasion. We’ll get funnelled in to the main access corridor that runs down the cruiser’s middle – its backbone, if you like. From there, all we have to do is reach my quarters.” 

Peter’s eyes grew. “You have your own _room_?” Only Yondu had that – had _had_ that, he meant. All the other Ravagers got crammed into five-stack high bunkblocks. Peter and Kraglin had been the exceptions: Peter because Yondu didn’t trust him not to piss someone off to the point where not even the threat of radioactive wrath come morning could protect him if left unsupervised for eight whole hours; Kraglin because… 

Well, Peter’s grandfather had muttered once that it weren’t _natural_ when men acted together like men and women ought, but Peter figured Kraglin and Yondu were aliens. And anyway, it wasn’t like they made out or anything. Only time Kraglin’d tried it Peter’d been pretending to sleep with _Come and Get Your Love_ crooning softly to him over the headphones, curled in a hammock strung above the desk that rocked dangerously every time he twitched. It hadn’t gone well. Yondu’d kicked Kraglin – quite literally – off the bed, and declared that he could go shake the dust-mites out of his own long-neglected pillowcase that night. Peter had gotten the vibe that such things weren’t to be discussed under the lights of the day-cycle; so, even though he’d have had to be deaf to snore through the slam of Kraglin’s bony ass hitting floor, and _dead_ to miss the under-the-breath griping that followed as Kraglin shouldered on his jacket and stalked on out, he’d rolled to face the wall and kept his eyes shut. He’d heard Yondu snort and do the same as the door clicked closed. 

But Kraglin had been back the next night, glowering at the ceiling on his back with spine stiff as a board and patched socks clipping the footboard. Yondu hadn’t welcomed him, but he hadn’t told him to fuck off either. 

As a result, Peter’d come to see personal space as a luxury. Dey’s possession of an entire room of it boosted his status tenfold. “That’s awesome! I haven’t had my own room since…” Well, three weeks ago. But it felt like so much longer. Peter shook himself. “Anyway. How’d you get that? Are you secretly a general or something?” 

Dey snorted. “I wish. Everyone has them. They’re not much, but they’re private.” 

…Why couldn’t he have been kidnapped by the Nova Corps? However, there was still a hole in the plan, and one which Peter saw no way to skirt: “How’re you gonna get me there though? Isn’t it a bit of a walk?” 

For some reason, Dey looked self-satisfied. “Yeah,” he said. “And I think I’m gonna enjoy it.” 

*** 

“Come on, you little rascal! Thinking we wouldn’t notice you stowing away?” 

Peter, bicep bruising where Dey was using it to haul him through the loitering clusters of Nova Corpsmen, all of whom turned to stare, tugged with a desperation that wasn’t all performance. “Ow! Careful with the merchandise, buddy!” 

“What you got there, Dey?” a man called from across the hall. Dey twisted at the neck to address him, hustling Peter in front so nobody got a good view of his face. 

“Street rat! No idea how it got aboard – whether it bribed someone or what. I guess there’s no way to find out?” 

“Ugh.” The man stomped closer; Dey’s hand impossibly tightened on Peter’s clavicle. He distracted himself by glowering at the man’s unpressed trousers. They hadn’t seen laundrey detergent in the last decade, and had no doubt been avoiding the underside of an iron for longer. “At least he ain’t dirty.” A finger hooked under his chin. It was human-coloured, on a spectrum of white-to-brown rather than green-to-blue-to-fuschia. It tilted Peter’s head to look into the face of an average-faced pale-skinned bipedal, who studied him over his creased and dirty collar as if he were monitoring a specimen in a tank. 

Moisture from Dey’s clammy palm slimed Peter’s neck. What was it he’d said? _Better hope they haven’t put you in the bounty-books already. There’s those on this ship who check them every hour._ Peter shivered – then remembered himself, and turned it into a defiant glare. Dey steered him away before he could blow a raspberry. 

“Sorry! Got to get a move on – get this brat headside before our boss’s meeting is over.” He forced a chuckle. “Last thing I want is for you guys to blast off and leave me on that ugly rock.” 

Mr. Average leered, gaze finally breaking away. “Aw, but imagine all the _fun_ you could have… No officers telling you when to jump, breathing down your neck…” 

“All the paycheques I’d miss out on.” 

“Point.” His grin was nowhere near as sharp as Kraglin’s – although it contended with Yondu for yellowness. Somehow, it made Peter’s armhairs prickle. “Off you trot.” He gestured them on with an oddly ornamental flourish, coming from a man whose badge – identical to that pinned in Dey’s lapel – was the colour of the grime Peter sometimes picked from his bellybutton. There was a clear stretch of corridor ahead though, and they were hardly going to turn down the offer. Dey and Peter breathed out simultaneously, and walked. They made three steps before Mr Average’s voice rang out again: “Wouldn’t it make more sense to take him to the ships though?” 

Dey’s fingers clamped. Peter spared a rueful thought for his collarbones, squirming ineffectually, and kicked Dey’s shin to jerk him from the guilty freeze. Dey unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Kid’s… hungry,” he croaked. “Won’t shut up unless I get him a snack, and it’s easier than listening to him blabber in my ear for the whole ride.” 

Mr Average’s smile ate into his cheeks. “That’s no way to discipline a brat. He’ll think he can walk all over you.” 

This wasn’t good. Peter revolved his elbow, shoulder-socket twinging, and wondered if he could find a good enough hiding place if he kicked Dey in the crotch and got a headstart. He doubted it. And – well, then there’d be nobody on his side. Dey’s thumb dug into the meat above Peter’s shoulderblades. It pressed twice, firmly. Peter looked up to find the corpsman standing tall, chest pushed out beyond his belly, the very picture of Nova justice – if slightly pug-nosed and overweight. But at that moment, Peter almost believed in him. His voice was a whipcrack. “Think you can lecture me, Harcourt?” 

Harcourt held the stare for a second, smirk intact. Then broke it with a scoff. “Whatever. Go on then.” Dey’s thumb made a final, reassuring press. _Safe_. Peter leant into it, just a little. He made sure to drag his feet when Dey restarted their frogmarch, restarting his string of complaints with a particularly snide jab about his mother that he’d seen land Yondu in a barfight. 

Then Harcourt spoke again. “Oh – and Dey?” 

Shit. 

Dey span them in a slow pirouette, Peter plastered to his side. He didn’t want to look up – too busy keeping his face turned from the light – but he didn’t need to, to know that Dey’s forehead had gone all pasty and that his knuckles were ashen. “What?” Dey asked. 

Harcourt scratched an ear. “Where’s Lancia?” 

“Huh?” 

Sighing, Harcourt took a holopad from under his arm and wriggled his fingers in the photon stream, tugging at the shifting data-threads until he’d isolated the right mugshot. A girl with dark skin and long silver hairmods, each strand as thick as Peter’s forearm, ghosted out of the projector to gaze dreamily through them and into the wall behind. “Her. Newbie from the noble families: heaven knows how she got assigned to this dump. She slums it with us when we’re patrolling Kyln’s left wing.” 

Peter almost forgot to put on his show of resistance, cataloguing that name for further investigation. _Kyln_. He was sure he’d heard the Ravagers mention it more than once, and never without that gutsy, overcompensatory bravado that was the closest they came to fear. Harcourt continued though, cancelling the hologram with a brutal wring of his thumb. “I’m on repair inventory and she’s overdue. Getting tired of waiting.” 

The release of tension from Dey’s hold practically had Peter spilling onto the floor. “Oh,” he said. Then shrugged. “Her engine was dodgy. Passed her on the way. She’s probably going to request a complete overhaul once she’s onboard.” 

“Ugh. Doesn’t she know how much paperwork that’s gonna give me? Prissy bitch…” Harcourt’s eyes were a little too big for his face. They protruded from their sockets, damp and shiny and large-pupilled like those of an animal. When they settled on Peter, he glared and clenched his jaw until his teeth hurt. But Harcourt didn’t assess him long. Just tipped his head consideringly, then waved – “Catch you later, Dey” – tucked his holopad down the back of his grubby waistband, and ambled away. 

*** 

“I don’t like this plan,” Axley had said. 

“Shaddup,” Kraglin had said. 

And that was that. 

“I _really_ don’t like this plan,” said Axley, as Kraglin rootled through the hordesman’s drawer for a spacemask. Those things were becoming more popular by the day as Knowhere techies enhanced and upgraded and embellished, and were now small enough that the activation chip could be tucked behind the ear. Yondu already had one; Kraglin had too, but he hadn’t thought he’d need it for a jaunt around Knowhere. _Stupid_ , yeah, but his hearing was more sensitive than most and that constant whine bored through your brain after a coupla hours. 

“Shaddup,” he said distractedly, and emptied a collection of dusty old protein bars onto the floor. “Fuck. No luck. Okay – gimme yours.” 

Axley clutched his ear as if afraid Kraglin would bite it off. Tempting – but no doubt the bastard would rock the scarred and asymmetrical look. Kraglin held out his hand and tilted his eyebrows meaningfully. He only had to beckon once before Axley relented, grumbling to himself as he disengaged the flesh-merge and let the sucker-pad return to its usual plastic white. Kraglin made a show of brushing it off before clipping it into place – pointless; Axley’s lobe-backs were no doubt as immaculately scrubbed as the rest of him – and nodded, satisfied. “That’ll do. You got rockets on your boots?” 

“Yes – you didn’t bring yours?” 

“Give ‘em.” 

“You oughta have brought yours...” 

“Give. ‘Em.” 

Axley gave them. Kraglin attached them to his ankles with a sharp snick. Then tested the kick-thruster and banged his head on the ceiling. “Ow!” 

“Oh – uh, they’re calibrated for my weight. Look, Kraglin. This is a bad idea.” 

Kraglin hovered to a safer level, rubbing ruefully at his rumpled Mohawk and flexing his abdomen to keep his balance as if he were riding on a surfboard. “Do you understand what ‘shaddup’ means?” Axley recoiled, and Kraglin relented – but only a smidgeon. “Look. You’ll be fine. All you gotta do is dump the ship at the nearest med-centre and hightail. Pick a refugee schooner headed Empire-wards, find some honest work in the backwaters – like an undercover, yeah? You’ve pulled off harder jobs in your sleep.” 

“It’s not _that_. It’s –“ Axley trailed off, four eyes drooping. “Will I meet up with you guys again?” he asked, quietly. 

It’d sure make lugging the boss around easier, once Kraglin’d found a safe hospital satellite to commandeer. It’d be one more person to shoot at enemies, and a potential meat-shield for when things went inevitably south. It’d also be one concession further than Kraglin was willing to make for the sake of the guy who may-or-may-not-have fucked his… _whatever_ Yondu was. 

“Nope,” he said with breezy cheer. “Go scrounge yourself some Nova citizenship papers and start a fuckin’ farm or something.” 

“What about when he takes the Ravagers again? You’ll come back for me, won’t you?” 

Kraglin thought about lying. He really did. But loyalty was too rare a commodity to waste. “Probably,” he grunted. Then activated his and Yondu’s masks, and dragged his captain over to the airlock. 

Fuck. Yondu wasn’t _that_ heavy – no heavier than he looked, which was admittedly fairly – but Kraglin wasn’t the butchest guy around (definitely not when all four of Axley’s mournful eyes were following his retreat) and Yondu’s limbs had this annoying tendency to hook around any protrusions on the wrecking ball’s walls. It took a long minute of prising and rearranging and glowering at Axley, just _daring_ him to comment, before Kraglin thumped the release on the first of the airlock doors and rolled Yondu’s unresponsive deadweight into the capsule. He remembered to cushion his head a moment too late – but stuck a boot under it before it could smack down. 

Beyond the porthole, a guttering Nova star-engine spat nonsensical morse at Knowhere’s receding husk. The pilot was visible: a blotchy figure stooped at the neck, slamming their hands on the console in increasing agitation. If they were distracted enough not to notice the whopping great Horde ship silently thrumming not one klik behind, they might not see the two small figures that detached from it with a pulse of amber fire, the former’s rocket boots propelling him and his companion weightless through the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Tell me what you think!**


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which a hospital is acquired, and Yondu wakes up.**

Kraglin didn’t hang around to watch the shrinking circle of the wrecking ball’s rockets. He pushed the Horde pistol to the back of the Nova girl’s head, squishing her face to the glass, and snarled: “Fly.”

He’d heaved Yondu through the airlock doors as fast as he could – wouldn’t do to leave him there, not when there was an ejection button tantalizingly close to the Nova girl’s hand. But he hadn’t exactly had time to make him comfortable, what with diving into the tiny cramped cubby of the cockpit and wrenching the girl’s non-joystick-clutching arm up between her shoulderblades. Nova vessels tended towards the small: one cockpit and one airlock, designed for short-distance flights only. There wasn’t even a loo. Kraglin guessed the Prime kept his minions well potty-trained. 

“Hope you went before you came,” he told her conversationally. “S’gonna be a long flight.” …A _very_ long flight, if her engine didn’t respond soonish. Kraglin ground the pistol in place, her weird white dreads stiff and felt-like beneath it. “You messin’ with me? I told ya to _fly_.” 

“I can’t!” 

“…What?” 

“My engine’s broken! That’s why you caught me! Please don’t shoot me, Mr Hordesman, my father can pay any ransom…” 

“I ain’t no Hordesman.” Kraglin sighed and reached over her, patting down her thighs and across her belly. She shrank into the chair, flinching, but she didn’t have any weapons over than the standard pistol in her leg holster. Kraglin confiscated it, and, finding his gun pouches were already full courtesy of the Horde ship’s stockpile, tossed it to clatter by Yondu. It smacked him in the stomach. Kraglin winced more at the lack of swearing than he would’ve done if he’d heard it. “Look, all I wanna do’s get my buddy here to hospital. Then you can go your way. No ransom necessary.” As much as it pained him to say it. If her engine was busted, he was gonna need cooperation to fix it, and he’d be more likely to get that if she thought he’d just been pushed to threats by desperation rather than doing this sorta thing as a dayjob. 

A silver eye cracked. The girl nodded as best as she could against the glass, her dark skin bouncing back the lights from her headlamps. “Okay,” she whispered. Kraglin breathed out, and let the pistol drop. She unstuck her cheek from the windscreen and when there was no retaliation, and with her hands quivering palms-up above her head, she turned around. 

And frowned. “Have I met you –“ 

Every time she opened a bounty-book. Kraglin quickly changed topic, grateful that the space was small enough that he could shuffle to block her view of Yondu without being too overt. “Nope. Okay, girlie… Name, you got a name?” 

“Nel Lancia.” 

“Alright –“ Kraglin stopped. “Lancia? As in the Lancia trading corporation?” 

“That’s the one.” 

“You, uh, happen to know someone called Isla…?” Probably not the time, but he might not get another chance, and Isla sure as hell wasn’t talking. Nel shook her head, dreadlocks slapping. 

“Never heard of him.” 

“Her. Anyway, ya got a repair kit stashed somewhere in this baby?” 

She blinked. “All ships have emergency gear, but I’m not qualified in engineering –“ 

“Neither am I,” said Kraglin grimly, stalking over to where she’d indicated and punching a panel in the wall. A slender storage space unpeeled, chockablock with electronic macguffins, and Kraglin scanned them with his wristwatch to see if the Ravagers’ database came up with any matches. Then paused. Looked more closely at the watch, suspicion gnawing. Could Vaas…? No. Just him being paranoid. Surely. The chronometers weren’t made for tracking: only for access to the internal fleet network and communications. He was lucky to still be in range. But this was Vaas they were talking about… Kraglin found the schematic he needed and minimized the hologram, snapping the wristwatch shut. “Alright. You got a spacemask?” She nodded. “Good. Grab that piece – no, _that_ one – and come with me.” 

And if he toed Yondu’s face to the wall before he let her step past, thwarting her curious stare, he at least did it _gently_ this time. 

*** 

They left the wristwatch floating in the aether. Yondu’s too. Kraglin felt oddly bereft, watching them diminish into the rest of the ephemera that bobbed around Knowhere’s dome. His forearm felt too light, the skin beneath less hairy than the rest and a wrinkled, corpsey white. It’d been years since he’d been without that. Much longer for Yondu, whose bare wrist was almost indecent. Kraglin _really_ hoped he gave him time to explain, once his mind was fixed. Arrow or no, a pissed-off Centaurian could do a lot of damage. 

He nudged Nel back into her seat, with a hand rather than a pistol – a tense moment juggling wrench and live thruster coil had proven that she responded better to encouragement than threats, which was a shame because he’d gotten damn inventive and it was always a bugger to know your creativity wasn’t appreciated. “Alright,” he said, pressing the ignition for her. It sputtered into life – doddery and faint, but unmistakable. “Now, you got a starchart on this thing?” 

*** 

Yondu woke up. 

Well, that was generous. To ‘wake’ implied some sense of autonomy in the matter; Yondu woke because the doctor whose poncy facility Kraglin had besieged had just emptied five-hundred micrograms of adrenaline into his veins, but as soon as he’d surged to life and caught the man by the throat he decided he much preferred being asleep, and determined to return as soon as was possible. 

For a start, everything _hurt_. 

Yondu’s grip didn’t abate, but his forearm was trembling ever so slightly, and sweat beaded coldly in the lines on his forehead (more than had been there three weeks previously, thanks to one small Terran). “Get offa me,” he growled at the doctor, who began to spittily protest that that was hard to do when Yondu was compressing his neck into a shape more ergonomic than natural. 

Then Kraglin, who’d had his pistols trained on the surgeon and his assistant for the entire seven-hour surgery (Miss Nel had elected to sit quietly at his feet, which was lucky because he’d run out of guns) and who had been nodding for at least four of those, jerked abruptly to consciousness and fired a warning shot into the assistant’s leg when she started a daring creep for the door. 

This facility was the closest official medicentre in Knowhere-space – so no way Vaas would ever think to look for ‘em here, but the receptionist had demanded this pesky little thing called _Empire-sanctioned Identification_ before he’d let anyone treat the unconscious blue guy Kraglin’d poured onto a wheelable gurney. Damn rude, really. Kraglin had soon put a stop to that. 

He’d blasted a few rounds into the overhead lamp, spun some lie about bombs in the generator room and declared he’d set them off if he saw anyone descend to check – and shot the receptionist, just in case they thought he was bluffing. Then nabbed a portable link into the security feeds so that the quaking med-staff knew he could be watching them at any time, and asked through a clenched and ticking jaw where he might find their best brain surgeon. 

From there it’d been a speedy hustle to an operating theatre, an awkward bonding experience when he had to share the decontamination shower with his three hostages and unconscious captain, and an order for the pair of white-coated doctors to get the job done quick enough that he didn’t get bored and start popping off janitorial staff for fun. 

All in all, it’d been a long fucking day and Kraglin was well overdue a nap. All thoughts of rest were banished however, when Yondu flailed awake. 

The surgeon had explained his process as he went along. Complained the whole time about how he hadn’t ever seen a mod like this before, and declared that Kraglin couldn’t hold him responsible for the outcome – which hadn’t exactly endeared him, but he’d sworn by his Hippocratic oath when Kraglin told him, in no small detail, what he’d do if a scalpel accidentally found its way into the uninjured parts of Yondu’s brain. 

From the way the surgeon was waving the implement, that was still a danger. 

“Woah! Woah – captain! Let’s not strangle the guy who’s fixing your head, yeah?” 

Yondu’s lips slowly peeled back from his teeth. “The fuck’s goin’ on, Krags,” he asked stonily, eyes never leaving the knife. His fingers, however, did stop concaving the poor surgeon’s neck, even if they didn’t release completely. 

Kraglin darted in. He reeled the Xandarian to a safe distance as he hacked and coughed, his assistant writhing on the floor in a growing puddle. Then leant close – Yondu lowering himself onto his elbows, bared teeth still threatening to snap – and stared into red eyes that were more than a little glazed, but wholly present and responsive. Kraglin forced himself to halt with inches between them, preserving the space. “You know me,” he breathed. 

Yondu snorted, but relaxed. “Mug like yours ain’t easy to forget.” 

Something squeezed in the region of Kraglin’s chest. It felt suspiciously like a heart. “Yeah,” he said, aiming behind his back to menace the doctor, who had recovered from his sudden brush with asphyxiation and was now attempting to lever his paling assistant off the floor. “Yours neither, captain.” 

The surgeon had explained it to him, best he could, pointing to the relevant points on the compositional scan which showed where Vaas’s blast had chewed Yondu’s implant. It’d travelled front to back, scouring the upper layer away in its entirety and melting and ionizing the join between crystal and brain. Not unsurprisingly, that’d resulted in some funky shit – the funkiest of all being regressive-to-total memory loss. That was the creepiest thing about all this: the knowledge that Yondu hadn’t been asleep. He’d simply forgotten how to wake up. 

Even in hindsight it’d given him the willies. Kraglin’d been told he ought to be grateful that Yondu hadn’t forgotten how to breathe instead, and the thought of that, of how _close_ Vaas had come, kept gnawing on him as he’d watched the surgeon apply a tiny blowtorch to the remnants of Yondu’s implant and tip his head so the remains of the implant coated his grey-matter more evenly. 

Suffice to say, he’d harboured doubts when the surgeon first activated the implement. But after Nel, the assistant, and the surgeon had screamed themselves hoarse and Kraglin had shot out one of the megawatt lights over the operating table, he’d calmed down enough to listen to their explanation. 

“It’s very, very precise,” the surgeon had promised. “It won’t damage his brain at all – and even if it did, it would cauterize instantly. But I’m just working on the implant.” He’d nervously tapped at the hologram, Yondu’s internal skull structure laid bare for the world to see. Kraglin tried not to think about how deep the implant went as the surgeon continued. “It’s quite ingenious, really – a dual-layered system, integrated through the cranium so it performs the job of an extra-sensory organ while emitting a low-wave radioactive resonance that incites sympathetic flares in metals of a certain frequency…” 

Kraglin wondered whether he was stupid enough not to have worked out their identities or was just putting on a farce, and which of those crimes was more punishable. The doctor had returned his attention to the chart though, stroking along the upper edge so that the pixels flipped in a mirror-like domino chain, boring a valley that matched the one the plasma bolt had carved. “But those functions were controlled by the top part. It seems that has been completely destroyed. Of the core sensory portion, enough crystal was atomized that he’s going to need a couple of patches to keep his mind and memory functioning – but I can’t rebuild the compound this implant’s made of. I’ve never seen anything like it, in fact. Thus, I have no choice but to redistribute the matter: which means that if you want his long-term memory fixed, something is going to have to go in its stead.” 

Kraglin had thought about it long and hard. Examined the hologram, each glowing segment of which was color-coded for his convenience and neatly labelled with arrows and block-Xandarian. There were five sections: the first had a deep gorge slashed across it diagonally from left to right. Apart from that blemish, everything seemed so… neat. So clean cut, so eerily compartmentalized. All of who his captain was, stashed in little crystal boxes stuck three inches deep into his grey matter. 

Shuddering to himself, Kraglin made his choice and prayed that it would have been the captain’s too. 

“How long will it take to come into effect?” he’d asked. 

“It’ll occur as the crystal settles,” the doctor had answered. 

As it was doing now. Kraglin found Yondu’s hand, jamming one of his pistols back into its holster so he could give the blue palm a weak and ineloquent squeeze. “M’sorry sir,” he said, as the molten pool thickened to sugary granules, then solid quartz. Yondu frowned. Made to yank his hand away, bitch something about _sentiment_ and _softness_ , and Kraglin needing to man up and quit treating him like he was on his deathbed. 

Then frowned harder as his brain converted the grip into the sweet taste of koshi-fruit on his tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Koshi fruit - from that absolutely amazing fic that reduced me to a pathetic snivelly wretch. Leaves from the Trees, I think it's called? It's very tragic and you will want to give teeny-tiny Yondu all the hugs.**
> 
> **I'm not following that backstory though, just so you know... ;)**
> 
>  ** **Hope you enjoyed my pseudo-scientific guff regarding the implant. Tell me what you thought!****
> 
> ****


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Dey vows never to procreate, a door is knocked upon, and there's something even wronger with Yondu's brain.**

Yondu had had a bed in his cabin, the mattress of which was circular and had felt too hard and insufficiently squeaky that one time Peter managed to sit on it long enough to bounce before Yondu eased him off by the ear. Dey had a fold-out pallet, which looked harder still. But it was actually made out of some super-dense but malleable memory foam, and it moulded to the contours of Peter’s body like a cast around a limb.

“Oh yeah,” he said, wriggling into the plush plastic. “This is the _life_.” 

Dey kept up the gloomy circle of polishing cloth over his Nova badge, although the metal had long since been buffed free of Knowhere’s airborne grime. “You’re sleeping on the floor.” 

“What? No fair!” 

“Who said anything about fair?” Peter pouted. Dey looked at the ceiling as if he might find strength there, and sighed through his nose. “It’s my room,” he said. But Peter wasn’t to be beaten – 

“I know! We’ll rock-paper-scissors for it!” 

“What’s rock-paper-scissors?” Dey shook his head before he could launch into a lesson, and repunched the badge through the neat incisions in his jacket. “I mean – look, Peter. There’s no discussion. It’s my room, so I get the bed.” 

Now _that_ was hardly logical. Frowning, Peter levered himself upright – the squishy cushions wanted to relinquish him about as much as he wanted to relinquish them. “But I’m younger!” 

“Exactly. I’ll throw my back if I sleep on the floor.” Peter looked at him dubiously. “What?” 

“You’re not _that_ old.” No older than Kraglin, and Peter’d seen him fall asleep standing up once, after he’d had to switch the nav system to manual to fly them through a solar storm. If he could do that, Dey could manage a few nights without luxury. 

“Old enough for this to teach me that I never, ever want kids.” 

Peter, taking offence, was about to argue that any time spent in his company ought to make any sane person enamoured with youth when someone knocked on Dey’s door. 

Dey froze. Peter froze. The person outside the door also seemed to freeze, for there followed a second’s lull that stretched to eternity in Peter’s mind. Then the knock returned: three times in brisk succession. 

Dey looked at Peter. Peter looked at Dey. They both looked at at the Spartan cubbie of a room, the only ornament in which was the unfolded bed. As a panel that fastened seamlessly into the wall when it wasn’t needed, it had neither legs nor hanging covers, and thus would provide inadequate cover to a gnat, let alone a Terran. There was nowhere to cower. Nowhere to hide. 

“Dey!” called Harcourt from outside, and Peter’s lunch started climbing up his throat. “Hey, Dey! I need you! Open up!” 

“One second!” Dey made frantic shooing motions; Peter lifted his palms ceilingwards as if to ask: ‘Go? Where _to_?’ 

He soon got his answer: Dey strode over, grabbed him by the arm, and (in a flashback to their frogmarch through the cruiser’s central corridor) hustled him to the corner of the room. He pressed him against the wall, slammed a palm over Peter’s mouth when he squeaked, and pinned him with a glare that needed no words to translate. “Coming!” he yelled. 

Moving to the room’s centre, he hit the hatch-release. Then – before Peter could cringe at the spill of bright white light into the dim box Dey called home – shifted his weight into doorway, barring Harcourt’s advance with a sturdy arm. “What’s up?” 

“The hell you doing?” was Harcourt’s first question. Then, as Dey’s eyes began their automatic creep in Peter’s direction: “What took so long? You keep holopics of Fabela stashed under your pillow, or something?” 

Peter didn’t know who Fabela was. Judging by the navy blood filling Dey’s cheeks, he did, and Peter vowed to check to see if Harcourt’s prediction was accurate even as Dey stuttered “I, I would never,” and Harcourt clapped his shoulder with a leer. 

“Oh yeah. Mr _Nice Guy_. Well, you’re missing out – but that’s not what I’m here for.” 

“No?” 

“No. You drop the kid off?” Peter gave an involuntary jerk, head thumping wall. Hopefully it was too quiet to notice. At least, no one barged Dey out of the way and no Average Alien bundled him into a ship headed Crab-wards. Not yet. 

“Safe and sound,” Dey said. 

“He go quietly?” 

Dey smirked, as if indulging in some private joke. It was a little wooden, but seemed to do the trick. “Not very.” 

Harcourt nodded. “Right. Well, we gotta problem – Nel never made it back. Her beacon’s saying she’s way off her course. A medicentre, if you can believe it?” 

“Perhaps she got injured?” 

“Nah, unlikely. If she were hurt beyond what we could deal with on the ship, there’s no way she’d have made it all the way out there in time. Something’s going on, and we’re gonna find out what.” 

“Says who?” 

“The lieutenant. The Warden’s extended the deadline before blast-off, but if our ships aren’t aboard before the end of our day-cycle we’ll have to wait for the next cruiser, which could be _weeks_...” 

He’d have to make the whole space journey to Xandar without Dey by his side – and somehow feed and water himself. Still. At least he’d get the bed. Peter was warming to the idea, when Dey dragged his jacket zipper all the way up, collar bunching under his chin. His mouth was firm and grim. “Give me five minutes,” he said. 

*** 

“Like hell this was ‘the only option’!” 

“Okay,” said Kraglin. “You’re upset. I geddit. But –“ 

“I ain’t _upset_! I’m fuckin’ _pissed_!” 

Kraglin decided that his failure to return the arrow was a good thing, if only because right then it would have wound up stuck in his eye with or without whistle-powered telekinesis. He dodged away from the first clumsy swing – enabled by Yondu still being on his back, shirt shiny with disinfectant from the sterile-shower – and deflected the second so that it glanced off his forearm. The third never came. Yondu scrunched up his face and stared at his fist as if he wasn’t sure it was still a part of him, pushing to kneel on the gurney with his uneven implant fracturing the light. 

“What is it?” Kraglin asked. 

Yondu’s eyes were smoldering in a way that usually meant immanent death. Luckily, for now, they were fastened on his clenching and unclenching fingers. “Tasted like fruit,” he said. Whatever that meant. Then blinked at the bright glare from the surgical lamp positioned directly over his head, and clapped his hands over his ears. “Holy _shit_ –“ 

“What?” That was pain on his face. Kraglin moved in, danger forgotten – a punch in the gob was a risk he was willing to take, even if it was wholly undeserved. “What is it? Sir? You alright?” 

Yondu’s forearms untensed slowly. His knees dropped from where they’d bunched up to his chest, and he cupped one palm over his forehead to shade his eyes. “Noisy,” he said, voice rough and low. “Light’s noisy. Light’s fuckin’ _noisy_ , Kraglin. That ain’t right.” 

Kraglin dropped his voice to the same register. “S’okay, sir. We’ll get ya fixed, I promise –“ But his words faltered when Yondu suddenly sat bolt upright, flinching from the light as his head filled with screeches, and turned a bewildered stare on Kraglin that still managed to be all kinds of angry. “Huh?” 

“Nothin’,” said Yondu. It sounded oddly strangled. “Think ya can talk normal-like?” 

“Um, sure…?” 

On the floor, the surgeon fastened his coat into a makeshift tourniquet and bound it three times around his assistant’s leg. Nel helped him tighten the knot, peeping at Yondu every few seconds from underneath her dreadlocks. Returning the stare – and adding in a sneer that had her squeaking and glancing away – Yondu snorted and started inspecting himself for injuries. “Why’d ya bring a Nova chick? They after us too?” 

It wouldn’t be any use reassuring him that all he’d suffered was the headshot and a few extra bruises from Kraglin’s less-than-exemplary palliative care. He’d only check again anyway. Glancing at Nel, who’d retreated to her corner, her palms glossy with the assistant’s red-grey blood, Kraglin grimaced as Yondu made an efficient pat-down examination of his trunk and legs, twisting experimentally at the joints. “Think they’re about the only faction with a Knowhere presence who _ain’t_ after us. Though that’ll change, once the Crab puts out bounties.” 

“Everyone’s got bounties,” said Yondu, poking a bruise on his shin. The wince was wholly the fault of the flavour that accompanied the pain: an incongruous liquorice. “Heck, I still got a bounty on you from that time on Graxis –“ 

“Weren’t that just for one job? I thought you said you’d take it off again, soon as we were done!” 

Okay. Only suffering from the odd graze – discounting the malfunctioning mind, of course. Yondu swung side-saddle, gurney creaking. His knee bumped Kraglin’s thigh, boot just brushing the floor. He dabbed at the back of his skull – then, once assured nothing was going to leak, skimmed his fingers across the implant. The smelted crystal was lumpy but smooth. His hand glided, each gradient as clean-cut as a diamond, yet everything felt raw, everything felt wrong; his fingertips brushed a multitude of facets where there should only be one smooth plane, and no static crackled up to saturate his pores. It was like stroking a glacier of igneous rock, spilt from the mouth of some long-extinct volcano. Cold and twisted. No fire beneath the surface – not anymore. 

It also tasted of cloves, but Yondu was trying not to think about that. 

“Arrow?” he said. That lone word was enough to have Kraglin flinching. 

“Didn’t get it,” he muttered, readying to duck away. Yondu made do with a glare – if only because punching Kraglin’s shoulder would mean twisting into the light, and his ears were still ringing from last time. 

“Vaas?” 

Kraglin shrunk further. It was kinda like watching a giraffe’s neck compact in slow motion. His black eye was a livid, shiny puff. “Alive. And, uh, she’s put the Horde on our tail too.” 

Horde, Crab, Vaas… Weaponless, senses defective, Ravagers’ loyalty status unconfirmed… Odds looked pretty shite. But Yondu wouldn’t have gotten this far if he curled up and hyperventilated at the first sign of a crisis. He made sure his legs weren’t going to shake before easing to his feet –Kraglin rushed to steady him anyway, shoulder thudding his. The brush of their hands still tasted like koshi fruit. Aromatic sweetness stippled Yondu’s throat, as if he were swallowing razors. It was disgustingly, horrendously familiar. He pushed the memories down, barging Kraglin off once he was sure of his balance, and distracted himself with their hostages. 

Three of them; two trembling, one gushing. No point offing them. Vaas’d be keeping tabs on panic reports from nearby medicentres if she had an ounce of sense bouncing round that big brain of hers, and any Nova death aroused suspicion – if the authorities weren’t already after them, murdering one of their own might piss them off enough to spark a galaxy-wide manhunt. Not that Kyln-guards were _protective_ (and a Kyln employee this girl no doubt was; they were the only Nova operatives shameless enough to show up on Knowhere in full uniform). But if the Corps were looking for an excuse to go after him and Kraglin _on-the-books_ instead of _off_ … 

Yondu narrowed his eyes at her. Sure, she’d blab the moment her cronies arrived, but killing her’d be as good as daubing _We Were Here_ across the walls in her blood, and like hell were they gonna lug her along for the ride. “She got a ship?” he asked. Eager to boast of some upside to this altogether crappy situation, Kraglin nodded like a broken-necked gallows victim in a gale. 

“Yessir! Nippy lil bugger too – well, when the engine’s working. It’ll be cosy, but it’ll do the job.” 

That made Yondu pause. “Do the job?” 

“Yeah – get us back to Knowhere, go after Vaas. Ain’t that the plan?” 

Yondu wasn’t aware there _was_ a plan. Thankfully, if there were two things captainhood taught you it was thinking on your feet and blagging. “Nah,” he said. “I ain’t no use without an arrow.” Kraglin’s protests were too stuttery to be convincing, so Yondu pretended he hadn’t heard them. He dug nails into his palm in an attempt to halt the tickling tingle that their sound evoked – but that only made the sweet flare on his tastebuds intensify. Blegh. “First call – we gotta get my implant fixed. I’m feelin’ and hearin’ all sorts of freaky shit here, and I want it to stop. So.” 

He turned on the surgeon. If he had his weapon he could do this long-distance, but with his face streaked with the gory dregs of the melted crystal, up close and personal would suffice. He stalked forwards. Dropped into a menacing squat, leather creaking, and moved until the surgeon’s thinning nostrils told him he could smell his breath. The Xandarian craned back as far as he could get. He whimpered when Yondu treated him to a jagged yellow grin and patted mock-kindly at his cheek. “You got some directions for me, doc?” 

Doc burbled spit. “I don’t know! I’m a biological practitioner, not an implant specialist – I’ve never seen anything like your mods! Ask the Crab!” 

“That,” said Yondu, flicking his nose, “ain’t all that helpful.” 

“But I don’t _know_ of anywhere else…” 

Kraglin snapped his fingers. The sharp noise made Nel jerk. The surgeon banged his head on the wall, and the assistant groaned and squeezed weakly at her bleeding thigh. Yondu jumped too, but for different reasons – a poltergeist had just tweaked his ear – and turned to glare. “What?” 

Kraglin was smiling too hard to notice. “He don’t know of nowhere else. But I might. That lab from a few months back. Where we dropped off them specimens – the trees and the furry critters and such...” 

“Were the scientists green and hairy?” Yondu asked flatly. 

Kraglin’s reply came a little late as he worked out the meaning. “Uh, no. Nah, they weren’t badoon.” 

“Then what use’re they gonna be?” 

“I dunno, maybe science-types fileshare? They were doing all sortsa wacky experiments with tech stuff… Trying to turn lower life forms into higher ones, or something.” 

Now that was just _rude_. Yondu got off the surgeon and rode out the scream that bounced around the inside of his skull as he turned on his first mate, who was lit from behind by a hundred glaring megawatt bulbs. “You trying to say something?” he growled. 

Kraglin blinked. “What would I be trying to…?” 

“Ah, forget it.” Course he wasn’t insinuating nothing. Kraglin weren’t like that. But Yondu’s usual hair trigger had been replaced by one thinner than an asbestos needle – which he figured he was owed a little leeway for, what with recent recovery from an amnesia-inducing headshot and all of the freaky sensory shit that had his ears ringing at bright lights and Kraglin’s voice alternately scratching on his eyeballs and stroking featherlight fingertips down his spine. Freaking out wasn’t gonna do him any favours though. And right then they needed a getaway, preferably before Little Miss Nova Corps’ rescue squad busted through the airlock. Yondu finally ducked his gaze when the noise of the dazzling beams became too loud to bear. 

“We head for Xandar,” he said. Lie. Kraglin’s idea was the best they’d got, but Vaas’s pistols would’ve had to have done a whole lot more damage before he’d admit to it in front of witnesses. They’d assign a course once they were in the aether. “Okay. I’ll tie this one and the chick. You fetch Peter.” 

There was an awkward silence. It wasn’t very confidence-boosting. Yondu, who had begun his path back to the doctor – his assistant at least wouldn’t require binding; she was too busy bleeding out to care – turned ominously slow. 

“Kraglin?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Something you wanna tell me?” 

Kraglin cleared his throat. Always a bad sign. Then coughed, which was even worse. “Uh, about Peter,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Suddenly - synesthesia!**


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Kraglin and Yondu make a decision, and Dey makes a discovery.**

Kraglin was thinking it, but Yondu had to be the one to say it: “We can’t go back for him.”

Kraglin, steering their craft out of the hospital docking bay – the surgeon had nervously informed them that Yondu wasn’t to operate any heavy machinery until they were certain the dope had worn off – looked at him out of the corner of his unbruised eye, but fixed them both on the asteroid belt before Yondu could return the glare. “Right,” he said.

Yondu sat up straighter. Resting on the pod’s curved wall, his knees were crammed tight to his chest, but he still found enough manouevere-room to kick the back of Kraglin’s chair. The impact tasted like lemon juice. “I said we _can’t_. Because Vaas’ll have scuttle-cams all over now. And from your story, ya had a hard enough time getting out before.”

“I know, sir.”

“We can’t just fly in there again. Heck, she’s probably assumed command of the fleet by now.”

“Yeah.”

It’d be like sauntering into the mouth of a planet-eater, as opposed to that of a dormant celestial. Certain, unavoidable death. Yondu moodily propped his boot soles on the opposite wall and braced himself as the vessel rattled under the pelt of a million rock fragments. This sort of galactic terrain was considered smooth sailing for anything of an M-ship’s size, but these Nova baubles took a beating like seashells under a mallet. They bucked and bobbed at the first waft of a solar breeze, simmered within a parsec of a star, and, as Yondu was discovering, fucking _vibrated_ every time comet-glass peppered their windscreen.

His tongue decided that that should result in the warm, coppery tang of raw flesh. Perhaps it was lucky the kid hadn’t made it. If he were here, Yondu’d be sponging puke off his shirt – stupid feeble Terrans and their stupid feeble stomachs – and he wouldn’t even have the appetite to threaten to eat him convincingly. Yep. No doubt about it: things would move a helluva lot swifter without some annoying brat swinging off his sleeve.

Yondu told himself that he was only fretting because his insults might run dry with no one but Kraglin to hone them on. He hung off the corner of the airlock as they steered through the dense clumps at the belt’s edge. “He’s gonna have to look after himself,” he said, with finality.

Kraglin pinched his lips shut, nodded, and set a course for Halfworld.

***

“That’s… inventive.”

“One word for it.” Harcourt stepped over the exsanguinated assistant, whose blood had congealed into the creases of her tourniqueted pant leg. “Hey. The fuck happened here, Nel?”

Dey, engrossed with the all-purpose surgitool – there had to be a scalpel function _somewhere_ – froze when Harcourt prised the gag from Nel’s mouth. Fabric from the surgeon’s smock had been bundled around a shard of glass from the broken light so that it’d gouge if she tried to worm it from between her jaws. But the words that followed were unmistakable.

“Udonta,” Nel panted, drooling blood. “Alive.”

Harcourt’s smile stretched. He unwound the scrap from the glass and pressed the pad to Nel’s leaking gum, then fiddled with his commlink. Dey saw the green recording LED flicker. “Udonta?”

“Yeah,” Nel slurred, words working slowly around the wad. “And his first mate. Obfon-whassit. Both alive. Headed for Xandar, they said.”

The light clicked to yellow for transmission as Harcourt pretended to nestle the earpiece more securely around his cartilage. It dimmed once the message had sent. “Interesting,” he said, and rose. Nel kicked her feet, the tip of the rag that emerged from her mouth fluttering on every exhale.

“Hey! Aren’t you going to help us get out?”

Harcourt scratched his chin. Pretended to consider. Then ambled decisively for the exit, giving the dead girl a kick on the way. It almost looked accidental. “My partner can handle that. I got other shit to attend to.” Yeah, like skipping curfew and sacrificing a week’s worth of pittance Kyln-pay in favour of an audience with the Crab, and a much larger handout.

Dey was tempted to wish he’d thought of it himself. He’d never acclimatized to life as a corrupt cop. Ever since he’d been assigned to the Kyln – punishment detail after a raid-gone-wrong; he’d assumed the Hraxian Governor and Cartel don’s coinciding schedule blanks evidenced an off-the-books meeting, but the hotel room he’d trailed the former to had housed a scene with his mistress involving several pots of homemade jam and one very alarmed looking duck – he’d struggled to locate in himself the misanthropy that powered men like Harcourt through life on spite alone. Shame, really. The deaths of his first few partners had summarily proven that being a callous dickwad optimized survival chances.

Nope, Dey was doomed to live good and die young. As proven by the fact that he'd had a whole twenty seconds before Harcourt reached the door to mention that _oh yeah, you remember that boy I said I was going to dump on Knowhere? Well, I forgot._

Even toying with that thought made his neck sweat. Heck, he hadn’t had the heart to let the duck go hungry in the evidence locker back when he was a humble operations overseer on Hrax. Here… Here things were different, admittedly. And he’d been slipping – had been willing to leave Peter to be offed with a nice neat plasma blast, so long as he didn’t have to watch. At the time he’d told himself that it was only natural; that _of course_ he was going to drain empathy faster than a breached hold lost air to the vacuum, because what else were you supposed to do when you faced the galaxy’s uglies head-on? Heck, Dey had only helped when he realized the alrernative was to watch the boy’s agonized airless flail in his rear-view mirrors.

Well, that had changed. He’d rectified himself. Determined that he would stick to his principles – from now on, it was high way or highway. Dey was getting the boy to Xandar and seeing him into the custody of a nice young civilian family who couldn’t have any of their own. And neither Harcourt, the Crab, nor Udonta could hope to stand in his way.

“Dey?” mumbled Nel around the spit-gummed fabric. She fidgeted and craned away from the surgeon – as much as the cabling from the eviscerated surgical lights would allow (had Udonta held a grudge for those things, or something?) “Are you going to cut us loose or not?”

Dey realized he’d been standing with a multitool in his hand for the past five minutes, staring vacantly at the doors. Scrolling through the settings until the transmatter solidified into a knifetip, he bumbled over and got to sawing.

***

Peter was bored.

This wasn’t an especially extraordinary happenstance. Peter got bored a lot – when he was waiting for his mom to finish a doctor’s appointment, or for granddad to pick him up from school, or outside the principal’s office to sit through another lecture on why he shouldn’t get in fights when he saw bullies smushing frogs. But he hadn’t been bored since being abducted by space pirates, and he hoped that that hadn’t changed just because he was now lodging with the good guys.

That was how it worked though, wasn’t it? So he thought as he rolled onto his stomach, poking absently at the pillow (turning it over had revealed a disappointing lack of raunchy photographs, only a slim glass holopad that he didn’t know how to turn on). He watched the memory foam gradually fill in the dents left by his shoulders. It was a fact of life: the outlaws were always cooler than the ones who chased them. There was Smokey and the Bandit, Butch Cassidy and the Bolivian army, Han Solo and the Empire… Okay, so the Empire weren’t exactly _good,_ but the point still stood. Pirates, thieves and smugglers were simply _more badass_ than anything on the side of law and order.

Kinda disappointing, that he hadn’t gotten the chance to ask Yondu whether ‘Starlord’ would make a good Outlaw Name.

The door pinged, and Peter scrambled off the bed in time for Dey to barge in. If he was a Ravager he’d have earnt himself a smack, but Dey only sighed in that _I’m not angry; I’m just disappointed_ way that no one but his mom had been able to master with any success. When Peter immediately reinstated himself on the bunk, Dey surrendered, waving the door shut so he could prop himself against it. He looked more haggard than usual. But there was a flintiness to his eyes that hadn’t been there previously – and not in a bad way. There was also, Peter noted with interest, blood on his sleeve.

“Well?” he asked. “Did you find her? Did she desert? Is she dead? Did you _kill her_?”

Dey hid the arm behind his back. Then reconsidered, and shoved his hands in his pockets with bloodstains bared to the world – justified, as Peter had seen plenty worse. “No, she’s not dead. But she had some news you might want to hear.”

Peter made a puzzled noise. What could some Nova chick know about _him?_ But he was glad he’d chosen to sit on the bed when Dey relayed the message, because without it he might just have fallen over.

“The Ravager Admiral, Yondu Udonta… The man who abducted you. He’s alive.”

***

“You’ve gotta take me to him!” Peter argued, punching uselessly at Dey’s midriff. The blows were absorbed by the belly, and Dey caught the sneaky fist that tried to smack below-the-belt with an aggravated groan.

“You want me to die. You actually _want_ me to die. I’ve decided to risk my reputation – and the only stable job I’m ever going to get, and potentially _my life too_ – on getting you to Xandar, and you want me to _gallivanting_ off to find a lost star-pod inhabited by two of the galaxy’s most dangerous criminals so that I can _return their kidnapping victim?_ Are you nuts?”

“Yondu’s going to Xandar too,” said Peter, with full confidence. “That’s what Nel said. So you could just drop me off when we arrive…”

Dey held up a hand. “No. No, I’m not leaving you, a _child,_ to be raised by _Ravagers._ Who knows what they were planning on doing to you! Udona probably planned to use you as bait. Or sell you to a trafficking ring, or – oh, I don’t know, _eat you._ ”

Peter’s comeback jarred off. “…He was joking about that.”

“Was he? Terran’s a delicacy in some parts. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Swallowing, Peter backed away and sat once more on the fold-out pallet. His head hung low between his small shoulders. “He was joking,” he mumbled. “And he’ll come and get me once we’re on Xandar. You’ll see.”

The push of air from Dey’s nose was louder than an M-ship being started by jump cord. But he shuffled over to Peter on quiet feet, and creaked slowly to sit besides him. He fished out the holopad and tapping in his passkey to bring up the adoption index he’d been researching when Harcourt first interrupted. “By the time you’re on Xandar,” he promised, “you won’t want him to.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **The happiest of birthdays to Tiny_Blue_Dancer :smoosmoo: I can't promise that I'll finish this, but I can give you a few more chapters. Poorly edited because I'm sick rn T3T**


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Vaas is a boss-ass bitch.**

“Y’know,” said Isla to the rookie picking his nose by the engine holofeed. “Boss’s sure been gone a while.” 

The kid dragged his nail over the pad of his thumb, scraping the snot into a flaky, greyish-yellow bead. He proceeded to flick it at the window, where it stuck and hung a foot above his head like a bulbous sack of spider eggs. Present for the next poor sod assigned to scrubshift. 

“I’ll bet that brat did sumthin’,” he muttered. “Y’know what he’s like.”

Isla rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t be riddikilus.” But the rest of the Bridge crew paused in their lazy maintenance of flight protocols and who-can-spit-the-biggest-goober-furthest contests, long enough to leer and nod.

“We oughta have finished the job,” Zqo said, kicking the base of her console with the agitation of one who’d much rather be kicking a small Terran. Morlug tapped her shoulder to receive a sign translation – which Zqo bequeathed with an exaggerated groan – and then nodded and flashed a handful of her own.

“She says kids don’t belong on this ship. Better if he’s pulled some crap and gotten himself offed. Less trouble for all of us.”

The chorus of affirmative grunts showed where the Bridge crew stood. They were a fairly accurate barometer for Ravager sympathies as a whole, given that there wasn’t much else to do on slow spacebound days than clean guns and gossip.

However, their loyalty to Yondu was more steadfast than most. If they weren’t fighting his corner in this, no one would be.

A subtle sweat had started to collect around the piercings in Isla’s palms. She folded them over themselves, forming two hard brown fists. When she spoke, it was directed at Zqo but loud enough for all of them to hear.

“C’mon. Y’know what cap’n said. Kid’s  _useful._ ”

If she’d been hoping to loosen the tension, she’d grossly misjudged; there followed indignant outbursts from every corner of the room.

“Don’t do nothin’ but cry!”

“Blasts his stupid  _music_ all the time!”

“Pukes whenever we take off from dock!”

A flurry of furious handsigns flew from Morlug. Zqo lifted her head, smirk twitchy.

“She says –“

“I fuckin’ know what she says. Look. Cap’n and first mate are off ship. That means Head Nav is in charge. And Head Nav says that  _the boy. Is. Useful._ ”

_What about Bo’sun?_  signed Morlug, fingers at an angle from her face to intimate sass. Not that Isla needed to be watching her hands to know that – it was written plain as the blazing stars in her twisted, scar-blotted expression.  _Because Bo’sun says kid’s a pest._

Isla held up her hands. “Oh, ain’t no one denying that. But he’s a pest cap’n says we put up with. So we do.”

“And what if cap’n’s gone soft?”

Stuttering breath. Silence. Isla filled it, blood rushing to her face, stalking forwards over the ringing, rattling floor grills with each heavy stomp reverberating through the Bridge like the impact from a Kree-canon on the exterior keel plating: “Who said that!”

A bunch of engineers-in-training peeled away from a hulking heavy-bearded man, hunched over his control plinth and stabbing his fat fingers on the glass. Isla advanced, a short and stubby ball of fury.

“You’ll shut your fuckin’ mouth if you know what’s good for ya, Horuz. You’re only up on Bridge to monitor the comms while Vaas’s offship. You don’t get no say.” She delivered the cincher in an ominous rasp: “And you wanna talk smack behind cap’n’s back? You better be ready to say it ready to his face too.”

Horuz snorted. It sounded mirthful. As Horuz was the sort of guy who only showed amusement when small fluffy animals were being mutilated, that wasn’t reassuring. Pushing up from his chair, he stood to his full height and engulfed Isla in his shadow.

“You think I don’t plan on it?” he rumbled. “As soon as he gets back, me an’ him’re gonna have it out.”

Isla’s stomach constricted. “Mutiny? Really Horuz? Ya think you got what it takes to run this place?” But Horuz’s scoff banished the thought.

“Fuck no. I don’t want no responsibility. But he’ll hand over the kid if he knows what’s good for him. And then…”

He licked his lips. Isla shuddered.

“Say no more. Though I don’t get why you wanna eat him so bad. Scrawny thing ain’t got no meat on him.”

If she was being honest (which she was, on occasion) she’d admit that the idea of feeding Peter to the biggest asshole on board didn’t sit right with her, no matter how irritating the brat got. After all, it weren’t like Horuz was gonna share. But, should Horuz be willing to compromise – dump the kid on one of them cheesy Nova homes-for-lost-waifs-and-orphans places, lord help them – then losing the kid wasn’t  _too_ big a sacrifice, right? Not if it meant Yondu could keep his place at the helm.

Isla just prayed Yondu was smart enough to realize that.

She postured a while longer, leering up into Horuz’s bristles. The stand-off broke only when Horuz’s commlink beeped.

Isla moved first. She darted forwards, dodging the swing of his substantial gut, and slammed the speaker. “Boss!”

“Isla?” A hologram buzzed into view, crackling faintly around the edges as if it were a glitching electrical feed. Not the captain. Someone taller, slimmer, more boob and less blue…

Vaas.

Isla slumped. Just a little. Still, no time to question how Vaas’d fucking  _reverse-hacked_ their comms from an offship point. She cut to the chase. “Any sign of the cap’n?”

Vaas looked very sober for someone who’d spent an extra five hours on Knowhere. Very,  _very_ sober. “I need t’talk to ya. Can you come to the Crab’s?”

Oh  _hell._ That was fifty shades of bad juju.

Isla’s fists had begun to squeeze again of their own accord. She willed the knuckles to relax, a tic spasming at one corner of her jovial grin.

“Crab? The fuck’re you with the Crab? Y’know he’s gunning for the captain.”

“About that…” Then a sniff, as if she couldn’t bring herself to go on. Isla narrowed her eyes at Vaas – badass, cool-as-a-frost-giant Vaas, who stared death, destruction and diabolical mayhem in the face (and usually tossed in a snappy one-liner while she was at it). The girl wrapped lanky arms around her middle and teared up. Just a wee bit.

But it was there: a glimmer of moisture that filmed across her blue irises like scum on a stagnant pond. Isla saw, and Isla smelt fish. A whole fucking dead whale; dredged up in high summer and left on the beach to rot.

“What happened?” she growled. “And I’ll ask again, in case yer reception’s dodgy – the fuck you doin’ with the Crab?”

Vaas delicately wiped her eyes. “Finalizing a shipping contract. Big money, y’know – smugglin’ tech through the Xandar stockade.”

Isla’s smile, by this point, had given up all pretence of merriment. “And why’re you finalizing contracts when that’s the captain’s job?”

Vaas blinked. Another tear trembled on the tip of her lashes, the ducts working valiantly behind.

“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “He made me captain. Just before the Horde executed him.”

 

* * *

 

 

To say there was a bit of a clamour after Vaas hit disconnect would be a gross underexaggeration.

“Bullshit,” yelled Zqo, over the racket as twenty junior Bridge members made their opinions known at once. “It’s bullshit! It’s gotta be.”

 _She just wants captaincy,_  Morlug signed. Then, fingers shaking a little –  _Probably killed him herself._

Isla, who had yet to join in the furious debating and smashing of non-essential Nav equipment that was preoccupying the younger members of the Bridge crew, stamped her foot for silence.

“We don’t know he’s dead til I’ve given the body a damn good kicking. Got it?”

 _But you saw the footage,_ signed Morlug. _Romago shot him in the head – not even Yondu walks that off._

Isla couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t. She shook her head. “Nah. This is Vaas we’re talkin’ about. Technical fuckin’ genius. Don’t trust no video that’s got  _her_ stamp on it.” There was a short pause, in which the Bridge crew mulled over that new possibility and found it to their liking. Of course, Horuz had to ruin it.

He creaked rearwards on his chair – Isla’s malicious internal chanting for him to fall going unheeded – and pillowed his head in the cup of a hairy palm.

“I dunno,” he said. “P’raps it’s time for a change.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you think it worked?” Crab asked, angling his hologram around Romago rather than coursing on through. Probably wise. Romago didn’t seem like the kinda fella who took nicely to being treated as open air, even for a blind man.

Vaas reviewed the footage as the Crab continued to place, Romago’s image patched in place of her own. “Only one way t’find out,” she said.

Crab had put up a token show of resistance, but agreed to Romago’s assistance with relatively minimal grumbling, sealing the contract with a stiff nod. Handshakes didn’t work so great when you were made of holopixels. The deal went something like this: whoever caught up with the renegade Ravagers first got custody, so long as proof of death was sent in a timely manner once all the fun torture was out the way.

Vaas didn’t really care. Her attention had been on the plan – what she was going to say to convince the Bridge crew to, if not accept her as Admiral, then at least let her onboard.

Once there it’d be easy. Win the support of the masses – through a renewing of bountiful trade oppurtunities that Udonta had soured. She’d be seated in the captain’s chair by dinner.

Of course, mentioning that she was in league with Romago would be out of the question. There was old bad blood between the Horde and the Ravagers, rotten and sour.

But  _somebody_ needed to go hunt their escapees down. While Vaas was sure the Ravagers would warm to her like fire to gasoline, it would take a while to weed out a handful who might be trusted to undertake an assassination mission.

In the corner of the room, Harcourt nervously shifted his weight over the balls of his feet. “Uh, thanks for havin’ me and all, but I oughta be going… Duty to the law, and all that.” He made to leave. Romago, towering above them all on artificial legs, hooked a glossy black metal hand into his collar. One of Harcourt’s fingers scraped the exit panel, and the rose-styled door unfurled, waited a generous second, and then spiralled shut.

“C-captain Romago, uh, sir – “

“Headed to Xandar, you said?” mused Romago. His cold steel fingers curled into Harcourt’s messy uniform. Those fingers could crush a Kronan’s windpipe or pluck a toothpick from a haystick without making it snap. Judging by the whimper, Harcourt could tell.

“Yes, yes that’s what the girl said – Nel! Her name’s Nel. I can fetch her for you, if you’d like, but you’d have to let me go first…”

Romago’s monocle swivelled around the obsidian orb, clicks punctuating the rasp of Harcourt’s too-fast breath. Then he smiled, and released him.

Harcourt stumbled forwards and caught himself on the doorframe. When he made a second undignified scramble for the release panel, however, he was cut short by the tut of Romago’s chrome-braided tongue.

“Uh, uh, something else I can do for you, captain Romago-sir?”

Romago tapped his fingers off his thigh. Metal struck metal. “Do you really believe Udonta would  _tell_ the Nova girl his heading? And then leave her alive?”

That was a good point. Vaas, whose mind had been otherwise preoccupied with how she might traverse the klik of aether between Knowhere and the galleon, stiffened. She saw Crab doing the same.

“Blast,” he muttered. But Vaas at least was a fair hand at improvisation –

“Do your ships have trackers?”

“Huh?”

“Beacons. You found Nel, didn’t ya?”

She activated a twisting algorithmical column of Xandarian keys, a stretched Rubik’s cube of fizzling particles that fluxed away from her fingers like iron filings repelled from a magnet. Vaas typed in deft strokes, narrating as she went.

“If that frigate o’yours ain’t jumped to hyperspace yet, I got a chance at hacking it. If I can access the nav system…”

She trailed off, drawing up a glimmering starmap.

“I’m a fuckin’ genius.”

“Unfortunately,” said Crab, listening to a soft-purling audio description, “so is Udonta.”

Vaas sputtered. “I wouldn’t go that far...” She took a proper look at the map.“Shit.”

Stepping up behind her, Romago appraised the flashing icon that pulsed twice in a heartbeat, hovering in space a klik from the hospital. “Not enough of a genius to place the tracker on a Xandar-bound vessel. That might have actually fooled us. Very well. I will scramble my men. If their compromised engine has been inexpertly fixed, they may have left enough of a rad-footprint to follow.”

 

* * *

 

Yondu lifted the wire cup. It’d held a tracking beacon once, before said beacon had been mercilessly gouged from the floor panel beneath his crossed legs and sent spinning into orbit. He tossed it from hand to hand.

Each impact was a tiny burst of koshi-juice. Saliva collected under his tongue, unwanted and a sour contrast to the persistent barrage of sweet.

“Well,” said Kraglin, glancing at his reflection in the space-black glass. “We don’t gotta worry about Crab’s goons no more. That’s somethin’.”

Yondu didn’t say anything. He did, however, place the cup between his palms and, with a noisy exhalation, flattened it.

At least he was only breaking crap that was already broken. Kraglin swallowed.

“You okay, boss?” He’d lost track of how many times he’d asked that in the last hour. Rather than growling, Yondu just examined his fingers with dull red eyes, swilled around his mouth, and spat on the floor.

“Hate that taste,” he said.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **When I say 'sporadic updates' I mean sporadic updates! I suddenly recalled that this fic existed. I'm not editing it too heavily, nor do I plan on continuing it beyond the chapters I've had written for years. It has a very low kudos count v. chapter count compared to most of my work in this fandom. But nevertheless, thank you to everyone who leaves comments and kudos!**

**Author's Note:**

> **So, this is being tapped up during my spare time between studies. As a result, it's not going to be edited as rigorously as my previous fics - please point out any mistakes! Updates will also probably be fairly sporadic. We'll see!**
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